Further on the "assembly programming" line of thought: there was a long time where compilers just couldn't match the speed of hand-coded assembly...but that time is almost completely behind us, and probably has been for quite some time.

As management tools mature and automatic, systemic optimizations are developed for SaaS systems, I wonder if the analogy will continue and areas where you need to manage it yourself to eke out performance and flexibility will get fewer and farther between over time.