Thanks for putting words to what I've been thinking. I have a lot of respect for their technical literacy and am working to get a fraction of the way there, but it's definitely frustrating to deal with people who don't recognize their blind spots.

It's not good enough for Bitcoin that aren't vital to money to be 'pretty efficient.' They need to require zero resources or less. At least, that's the standard they'll be held to on MY node, in MY mempool. After all, there is no THE mempool, nor was there ever, and no should there be.