I STILL code in Assembly. :) Thanks for the plug, mate. You want fast, small, and efficient? Assembly code is the way to go!
Yep, assembler is wonderful unless you need the software to be ready before the device is obsolete ;)
If millions of instances are going to be run for years, it makes sense to spend more time on the programming to get it efficient. Management is often concerned with having just one or two guys knowlegeable about the magic.....
Spagetti code was done for good reason.
Game programmers had all sorts of tricks to speed up frequently run code.