[smaudet]

Per my sibling comment, I think the argument is not about speed, but simplicity.

Awkward switch syntax aside, the switch is simpler to reason about. Fundamentally we should strive to keep our code simple to understand and verify, not worry about compiler optimizations (on the first pass).

[saurik]

Right, and there I would say we even agree, per my first sentence; however, I wanted to reply not to you, but to doctor_phil, who was explicitly disagreeing about speed.