> They're thinking, "adding [some fraction of existing total payload] for such a high quality [feature] actually borders reasonability". Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Context makes all the difference here. If you're considering a big chunk of size for a relational database engine, you need to ask: are you making a complex application, or a normal web page? If it's the latter, then it's not reasonable at all.

And anything that makes the HTML itself that big is almost certainly bloat, not "high quality", and shouldn't be used in any context.