[hyperhopper]

This is not true at all:

I've been many loops that turn into no-ops because all the functionality has been refactored out but this fact is hidden in function calls.

Sure, this should ideally be surfaced as a lint error, not a compiler optimization, but you cannot say that intentional delays are the "only" reason.

Also since processing time is variable, using that as a method should be extremely heavily discouraged/warned/require-opt-in