[BeeOnRope]

:) I guess I'm not fun at [code golfing] parties.

I just want to gently push back on the notion that the source level branchy-ness is tightly tied to the generated assembly level branchiness.

Sometimes, it is - but it is a long topic to characterize when. For simple things like counters based on a condition, you'll almost always get branch-free. Same for assignment/return value based on a condition, where the possibilities don't involve lots of asymmetric work (or a asymmetric memory access).