Please allow that mess of using ar to work in LTO mode, i.e., allow bypassing the ar or replacing it with the compiler in linking mode, or something. Basically

Please allow that mess of using ar to work in LTO mode, i.e., allow bypassing the ar or replacing it with the compiler in linking mode, or something. Basically don't use ar in a way that breaks LTO. LTO is awesome, as some code does benefit from optimizing for a minute to get 5% more speed for the next week (and sometimes even more aggressive parameters for the optimizer, if you run the code for long enough to matter).