Race to idle probably makes more sense in the context of smartphones where there’s at least some chance that “idle” means the screen might be turned off.

For a desktop, the usage… I mean, it is sort of different really. If I’m writing a Tex file for example, slower compiles mean I’ll get… fewer previews. The screen is still on. More previews is vaguely useful, but probably doesn’t substantially speed up the rate at which I write—the main bottleneck is somewhere between my hat and my hands, I think.