If you've passed a car before, it feels pretty clear that minimizing your time spent in the same lane as oncoming traffic is a much bigger priority than minimizing how much you go over the speed limit.

I've passed plenty of cars. Usually, in this scenario, I can exceed their speed by 15+ without even crossing the speed limit. If I had to go 10+ over the overall speed limit to pass them, I almost certainly just setup a situation where I'm either speeding in general to stay ahead of them, or I moved a single car's distance in the line that I was in. Which... seems silly to argue for.

If you are in a place with very flat/straight roads, you can pass while seeing oncoming traffic. I don’t know how it is in Australia (who are known to have some of the flattest straightest roads on earth) but in Nebraska this is definitely feasible.

Fair that I can't say you should never do so. I'd stand by it as a general safe rule, though? If the road is that long and straight, I'd imagine it also has a rather high base speed limit already.

Definitely on a twisty and/or hilly road you don’t want to pass if you can see above or around. But there are lots of places in the country where you pass if you can see the oncoming cars are far enough away. And you are usually passing a truck or RV going 40 so it’s not that hard.

However, I’m so glad I live in an urban area now where such driving skills aren’t really needed much anymore. I’d defer to people living in rural areas that do this many times a day.

Agreed that it can be subjective and can/does happen often. I further agree with you that you are most often to want to pass if someone is doing 40 and the limit is 50+. In those cases, we wouldn't be in the scenario offered in this thread, as you often don't even have to speed to execute that pass.

That said, I underline again that I think a system that impacts throttle at merely 1 over the limit would be a bad idea.