I think you are underestimating the ability of humans. I remember back in the day where I was following a small amateur indie game scene (1998-2002), a guy rel

I think you are underestimating the ability of humans. I remember back in the day where I was following a small amateur indie game scene (1998-2002), a guy released a game he'd written entirely in assembler, just for fun. He could have easily have written it in C instead, but he didn't. The binary was significantly smaller and the game really smooth. You don't write assembler the same way you write C or C++. A compiler is working under various constraints, for instance regarding interoperability. When you craft everything by hand, you really have no constraints other than your imagination. You can benchmark stuff and learn and adapt. Compared to that a compiler is a sophisticated idiot. That doesn't mean all of us should start working in assembler. But don't look down at people that do - instead find inspiration, and perhaps try to make the compilers less dumb.