I get what you are saying. For a typical hobbyist with a project or two, a few-cent (or even few-dollar) saving will most likely not make an economic differenc

I get what you are saying. For a typical hobbyist with a project or two, a few-cent (or even few-dollar) saving will most likely not make an economic difference. However, there are other aspects: 1. Golf. Just like code golf, running some task in the least resources possible (price, memory space, PCB space, flops) is a fun challenge in and of itself. 2. Professional. Some of us do (or used to) have a career in hardware/firmware engineering where the cent-level cost or millimeter-level space actually matters. And it affects how we look at hardware components. 3. General fascination at how far the technology has come along.