I agree. The project I work on right now has some major performance issues, and I'd LOVE if it were just a few bad inner loops that we could re-write. Instead

I agree. The project I work on right now has some major performance issues, and I'd LOVE if it were just a few bad inner loops that we could re-write. Instead it's more like death by a million cuts with the end result being a performance nightmare. Honestly I think the "avoid premature optimization" quote has done more harm than good. Too many people think it means "don't think about performance at all until it's a problem," but by then it's too late and actually a lot of problems combined.