[wp-hackers] is it a good idea to remove the category base?

[IC IC]

The codex has this to say about Category base and Tag base

<quote>
The Category base and Tag base are prefixes used in URLs for category
and tag archives, which look like this:

 example.net/wp/category_base/category_name
 example.net/wp/tag_base/tag_name

The default values for these are category and tag. You can change
them, but you can't remove them from the URLs altogether.
</quote>

But we all know that there are plugins that let you overcome this
limitation allowing you to remove the category base, the question is
SHOULD WE?

For some reason, I sense that this kind of a modification would effect
the performance and may cause odd behavior.
Any comment-|insight appreciated ?