Option A: Maybe it's acceptable for legacy code to be compiled less-optimally? If it was fast enough on a Pentium 4, it should run fine on modern chips even wit

Option A: Maybe it's acceptable for legacy code to be compiled less-optimally? If it was fast enough on a Pentium 4, it should run fine on modern chips even without some optimizations Option B: How often is legacy code recompiled, anyway? Option C: Why not compile legacy code with legacy compilers? Sure the hack was removed upstream, but that doesn't stop you from using a copy of gcc circa 1995 Option D: If it needs to be maximally fast, and is routinely recompiled on a wide range of systems with a variety of compilers (e.g. Linux kernel), maybe it's worth rewriting.