[jvehent]

SSL is so minimally computationally intensive that it doesn't hurt to just use it by default for all of your traffic

May I ask where you got that from ?

SSL, or to be more accurate RSA, IS computationally intensive, but mostly at the establishment of the session (you cannot do millions of multiplications on a consumer grade CPU without expecting some delay and heat).

Once the connection is established, and can be reused/resumed, it's relatively cheap.