[Paul_Clayton]

In D&D, min-maxing (hyphen and one x) is already a used term for character optimization, minimizing undesirables and maximizing desirables (I guess).

Minimizing peaks is probably not a good strategy generally. Even low peaks may have some benefit ("if you know your problem is in this domain and performance is critical, this tool offers a 3% advantage").

Minimizing troughs may be more attractive. People generally seem to react more strongly to negatives and competitors can devise benchmarks which emphasize one's troughs.

While a universal expert would be convenient and broad knowledge aids some forms of creativity, specialization has substantial advantages.

Trading max performance (primary metric of concern) for some improvement in a secondary metric often makes sense and that could be an interpretation of "minmaxxing", reducing the over-emphasis of a single metric which would otherwise be maximized.

[Sharlin]

Yes, it was a subtle referencing to rpg minmaxing, and also the minimax algorithm, beyond the more surface-level idea that "maximalist" trends tend to be followed by "minimalist" ones as a natural counterreaction.