> If using loads of data and cpu is a bad thing, he should propose a new measure of goodness that takes these into account.

You better separate between using lots of data (perfectly OK, in my opinion) and the number of parameters that the model uses (say, number of weights in the neural network) and where you better have good explanation for the existence of any variable and why it has this concrete weight and no other and why it is even necessary to introduce (consider any parameter that you have to introduce as some kind of physical constant - physicists invest lots of time to explain/reduce the number, so should CV researchers).