Quite the opposite, for most cases you don't hit the scale where asymptotic algorithmic performance really makes a big impact (e.g., for many small set comparis

Quite the opposite, for most cases you don't hit the scale where asymptotic algorithmic performance really makes a big impact (e.g., for many small set comparisons, iterating over a list is faster than a hash set, but only by 10-50% or so), vs switching to a compiled language which instantly gets you 10x to 100x performance basically for free. Or perhaps another way to look at it, if you care enough about performance to choose a particular algorithm, you shouldn't be using a slow language in the first place unless you're forced to due to functional requirements.