So in order for gimme code to be useful to a large selection of people, it must be reasonably generalized, which means it must be made more cumbersome than any one individual would ever need.
is that the reason I need a multi-GHz PC to even get a compile done the same day

That means that whoever uses it is going to have to tailor it to their specific need.
That would be a total abolishment of the idea of "reusable code" thus the types that write code for the PC would ABHOR to "tailor it to their specific need", since, for them, the principle is more important than efficiency.

as an illustration, let us assume that neither 'C' nor assembler had a divide.

then a 'reusable' divide, which must be capable of dividing 100 gadzillion by 100 gadzillion, would be implemented to do 4/2

Erik

anybody ever thought of the lack of 'greenness' of todays PC code. If the PC code had been written with efficiency in mind a 'sufficient' PC could be built using half as much power.