Sure I completely get that, but what the core issue I was hitting on is that you end up trading an expensive resource (computing power) for a very cheap resourc

Sure I completely get that, but what the core issue I was hitting on is that you end up trading an expensive resource (computing power) for a very cheap resource (disk space). In cases where disk space requirements become enormous this can be a necessary trade, but here that's not really an issue. I enjoy not strictly necessary optimization as much as anybody, but unless I'm missing something this optimization seems that it would ultimately result in a less performant system with very little to show for it so it wouldn't be particularly fair to call it an optimization.