Dave McGuire wrote:
>  While I agree in principle with your points, I cannot and will not
> accept the notion that modern GCC "gives back" enough additional
> functionality to justify its increased size and decreased speed over,
> say, v1.38, the first release GCC I ran.

I don't see what the problem is.  If GCC v1.38 does what you want, you
should use it.

Presumably all the changes that were made to GCC since then were done
because someone somewhere wanted them, and believes that they do "give
back" enough.  If those people want something different than what you
want, why use "their" version of GCC?