[jcw]

Also, I understand that some people (including me) do have fun tinkering with low level details and tiny optimizations, but when you're making a small game with a small (even solo) team, these tasks tend to work against making a good game.

[sambeau]

When making a game the "low level details and tiny optimizations" that you want to concentrate on are the ones that make the game more fun: fun little touches. Sometimes that requires code optimisations but mostly it involves the kind of special-case actions and quirky animations that make for great gameplay but nasty-looing code :)