[zeteo]

But 12 only gains you one more factor that's not a power of 2, and is 30 times more difficult to implement (operation tables have 144 cells for base 12, compared to 4 cells for base 2).

[eru]

That's why you should use the digits -n/2 to +n/2 for base n. That shrinks the tables by a factor of four.

[zeteo]

Oh no, I just knew someone would come and argue for balanced n-ary on this thread :)