[locknitpicker]

> This feels like a very American way of designing things - just throw more horse power at it, bigger is better!

I don't think so. Bruteforcing problems is a well established strategy in any field that involves computation of any form. Once you get something working, you can get results right now if you throw resources at it. In the meantime, any improvement in efficiency can easily be back ported to the same computational resources you're using.