There's indeed a predictably present cost for checking for failure all the time. Exceptions, depending on the implementation, often do come with runtime overhea

There's indeed a predictably present cost for checking for failure all the time. Exceptions, depending on the implementation, often do come with runtime overhead too. If the determining factor is a slight performance gain of exceptions over ubiquitous checking, that would be an exceptional (ha) case. I daresay there are almost always other more salient factors, if harder to rearchitect around.