It is especially evil since on many systems old methods are more performant, because they were meant to be used on old limited hardware (where cycles and memory

It is especially evil since on many systems old methods are more performant, because they were meant to be used on old limited hardware (where cycles and memory really mattered). So by making those slower... you 're really digging a hole. There are of course cases where the opposite is true too, like all things in life.