I completely agree. Every creative I've ever trusted has the same philosophy: freedom through constraints. I've found in my life, too, I can focus more closely

I completely agree. Every creative I've ever trusted has the same philosophy: freedom through constraints. I've found in my life, too, I can focus more closely on elegant solutions when they become (perhaps artificially) necessary, not merely aesthetically pleasing. I'm actually having a similar experience of insane efficiency improvements in a personal project, much smaller in scope, that came down to using bit operations and as-branchless-as-possible methods for an Arduino Nano.