That I disagree with on multiple levels.

Actually, I think your argument agrees with what I said. I said

consider hardware first

In the example you provided, you considered hardware and concluded that it wasn't practical to purchase new hardware to solve the problem. My suggestion was to at least evaluate hardware improvements as an option before you throw coder time at the problem. Coder time can sometimes seem "free" since they get paid every two weeks anyway, but there is still a cost to someone doing work.

So I agree with your assessment for cases where a hardware upgrade is prohibitively expensive.