I don't understand the point of the article. Using optimizations in a compiler is fully voluntary act. You can just compile everything with -O0 and be done with it.

Some of us actually do need them. Soft realtime programs (games as an example) are perfect example where they are crucial. Reaching same level of performance using non optimizing compiler would balloon the development costs up multiple times.

I would understand the complaint if compilers would mess things up and you couldn't get around it.