Marco Costalba [off-list ref] writes:
as you said, the speed is almost the same but your way is clearly better.
How often do you do this --diff-filter=AD and why?
If it is a common enough operation, we could add a specific hack
to stop feeding the diff machinery with unwanted kind of changes
when diff-filter is set and none of -B/-C/-M are used. That
_might_ speed things up for you.