The problems as you've listed here have no context, which will make them extremely difficult to answer, if not impossible. For example: > How clever to get

The problems as you've listed here have no context, which will make them extremely difficult to answer, if not impossible. For example: > How clever to get with javascript in the browser > without going overboard. Depends completely on whether anyone other than you needs to read/maintain the code base, what kind of advantages the "cleverness" brings (performance, maintainability), etc.