I got the impression that you _are_ expected to spawn a new instance each time.

My impression is that the fast loadup is for scaling upwards as needed. I am only expecting it to spawn a new piece if I am the first person whose request can't be answered as part of a wave of unexpected traffic... Why else would you want this?

I think so too. But simple pages in this configuration just measure nginx performance (check the breakdown)—that's a good sign for the rest of the process.