What the article fails to mention is branch predictors in modern CPUs are generally correct >95% of the time for real world benchmarks (usually SPEC). Furtherm

What the article fails to mention is branch predictors in modern CPUs are generally correct >95% of the time for real world benchmarks (usually SPEC). Furthermore each CPU uses different approaches to branch prediction such that a bad pattern for one will not be in another. So spending time trying to optimize your code in this way will only optimize it for a particular processor which wont work if you're trying to make a distributable binary. (i.e. different x86 processors use different branch prediction algorithms. You will basically be optimizing specifically for the Intel i7 or specifically for the AMD Athlon 3)