You know, that's an interesting question. First off, I'm not sure how much of an impact this logging code will have on the app as a whole. Maybe we could run two ephemeral instances, one with logging disabled, point load_gen at both of them, and see if the logging change alone produces a meaningful change in resource use.

Still, though, this does look like it might be one of those rare cases where micro-optimizations might actually have a significant impact. I'm reminded of the now a bit old, but still wonderfully informative, [talk](http://www.slideshare.net/newmovie/know-yourengines-velocity2011) Dave Mandelin gave at Velocity a couple of years ago.