[davtbaum]

Who ever said optimization and readability were mutually exclusive?

If the engineer who develops this (provably optimized) codebase can't read the code, he/she should be replaced with someone who can.

[Rastafarian]

Right, an advice with zero practical value. There's such an abundance of great programmers awaiting a job/contract offer ...

[sliverstorm]

If "optimized" means "clean and efficient", then yes, it is inherently readable.

But, there are plenty of optimizations one might make that are obtuse and difficult for any human to easily hold in their head.