Yeah, its not so much a game of "don't use the branch predictor". Its more so a game of "definitely use the branch predictor, but eliminate unnecessary branches

Yeah, its not so much a game of "don't use the branch predictor". Its more so a game of "definitely use the branch predictor, but eliminate unnecessary branches so that the branch-predictor can be used on more important parts of your code". I don't think people realize how much branch predictor + Out-of-Order + superscalar builds and combines with each other to build modern CPUs. Its done this way for a reason.