I think the point that was being made is that the _dynamic_ performance of the system is important too: branch prediction, cache access patterns etc, can't alwa

I think the point that was being made is that the _dynamic_ performance of the system is important too: branch prediction, cache access patterns etc, can't always be determined ahead of time, or even at the point the program is being installed or first run. This is why JIT compilers exist that tune the program as it runs, and this is what effectively is also happening at the micro-op level in your CPU as it runs.