The guiding principle behind tools like these is:   “let it be guaranteed to work, no matter what.”

Okay, so what is “the necessary trade-off” of that?   You guessed it: (1) file size, and (2) memory.   But, neither one of these things are (in this case...) judged to be important.   Quite the opposite ... they are sacrificial.   They are “the price to be paid.”