I think that you're referring to Good Optimization(TM), whatever... ehm... that is... I think that the premature optimisation is the root of all evil meme => optimisation is a dirty word meme both stem from a naive view resulting in too often asked help and quest for micro-optimisation on part of (patently) unexperienced programmers who should better pay attention to other aspects of (perl) programming. So, as it so often happens, both POVs have a firm basis and the truth lies probably between them...

Whatever, all in all I agree with you: Optimisation isn't a dirty word..