> You're right in that the code is logically the same. But if you look at the object code, you'll find my proposed version is dramatically shorter. I'd prefer the shorter version.

Looking at the code again, your version is ridiculously complicate, and does not match the surrounding code, which uses repeated calls to `writeByte`.  It also does not appear to be significantly shorter, except for the fact that you removed the comments and some of the code.

This is not a frequently-called function, and micro-optimizing it at the expense of readability is not something I'm going to do.

Also note that `align` is usually (always?) zero, resulting in the same number of calls to `writeByte` as the original code.

Please reconsider merging this as-is.