I would argue in this context "optimize running time" is different while "optimize latency" and "don't care about performance" are similar. I mean - if you don

I would argue in this context "optimize running time" is different while "optimize latency" and "don't care about performance" are similar. I mean - if you don't care about total running time it makes sense to remove special cases that don't change the worst case because of readibility/bugs, no matter if you care about latency.