Thanks for the pointer to databases. They have done quite a bit of optimization work. We could generate one element that does the work of many and automatically substitute it for a group of elements. We also plan to use dynamic code generation to try to reduce overhead. Click has timer elements.
Scheduling is harder.
Scheduling will be important in the future. We will look more at how Scout and others do scheduling. Routers have lots of queues, which are natural areas for scheduling. We may look at that too and try to figure something out. Elements can be designed to have any property you might want.