[jacquesm]

Having slower individual components running at ridiculously low power is a valid optimization because it allows very close packing of those components and levels of interconnection that we can only dream of in our designed systems.

The optimization is a subtle one but extremely powerful, and it will be a while before we can pack equivalent computational power in something of similar size and power requirements.

Think about the amount of hardware required to simulate a cat brain at reduced speed, then think about the amount of hardware in a cat brain.