Having said that, there is also a difference between optimizations that are intended for real-world application improvements (which are supposed to do what you describe above) and optimizations that are intended purely to improve benchmark results. Without knowing how/why this particular compiler optimization arose, it is not possible to determine which case applies here. As others have suggested though, the timings of the compiler change raise suspicions.
It could also be because the original results came in, and Intel noticed that some parts of the code weren't compiled with optimizations turned on, so Intel merely turned them on.
What's with these conspiracy theories anyway? Of course Intel would want to optimize code to improve benchmark results. Why bother otherwise, unless you think Intel is also removing key functionality to achieve those results?
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