I think you miss my point, I agree that bloating a machine with ram isn't an alternative solution to writing tight code in the first place,

my comment is that in your example you used 45MB to do a 150MB piece of code, you STILL used 45MB which just wouldn't fit on the Empeg!

I totally agree and as a programmer myself I put a lot of effort into writing tight/fast code and not bloatware, but sometimes you just can't get a pint into a half pint glass!