> But the time we spend improving efficiency is hugely elastic. In the context of the above posts, "elastic" is an economic term used to refer to the demand cu

> But the time we spend improving efficiency is hugely elastic. In the context of the above posts, "elastic" is an economic term used to refer to the demand curve. There is no supply/demand curve when it comes to internal technical decisions for optimization =) I would say your work is highly correlated to the price of hardware per some unit of performance AND the amount of work that you need to complete AND the amount of hardware already available AND the cost of labor needed for optimization. I imagine in your case, since these systems are tightly controlled, you can probably run unpatched without taking a substantial risk.