<snark>Time spent optimizing assembly language is never wasted.</snark>

That's only half-snark. It was "wasted" in the sense that it wasn't as useful as the OP thought it would be. But diving deep into a technical problem? That left an indelible pattern on the OP's psyche. If they ever have to do something like that again, it will certainly be easier. And since AI is going to be doing all the simple coding tasks, humans will have to dive into the deep, hard tasks.

Also there is no way for author to know that his optimizations wouldn't work without trying them. We are not even sure that his analysis of why they work is correct (though it sounds reasonable). There is also the possibility that author could use the new found information to fix his optimizations so they are better.

It could also burn someone out and take out the real reason technology exists: to help someone.