I would say it's a trade-off between writetime efficiency and runtime efficiency. The trend has been that runtime efficiency matters less and less. Compare t

I would say it's a trade-off between writetime efficiency and runtime efficiency. The trend has been that runtime efficiency matters less and less. Compare the modern idea of "efficient" software to the binary that early machines were programmed in. With Moore's law possibly ending and current memory access speeds though, it may be starting to matter a lot moore.