I'm not sure that's a strong argument for your case. Similarly to the way that Usain Bolt could probably beat me in the 100m even if he was in a wheelchair with flat tires, I'm sure Richard Hipp could probably do a decent job of optimizing SQLite with just a stub of pencil and a scrap of napkin. I just think he'd be more effective with better tools.

But you inspired me to test out some real numbers, which I posted in a new thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8426302