>What non-ideological motivation do I have to ration computing resources on my IDE?

I feel gross explaining this.

If we both have the same exact machine, but I choose to use software that uses substantially less resources -- well -- then I get to run more of that software simultaneously.

if you use computers as some big single-tasked typewriter equivalent then yeah, who cares.

it's not all fucking style and ideology, sometimes behaviors have a decent concrete reasoning.