There are applications where no overhead is always better than any overhead. Mostly stuff involving the simulation of physical processes. For example in computer sound synthesis and processing no matter how much computational power you throw at me I will use it up. A musician buys a computer twice as fast as the previous one? Great now he can use 10 convolution based reverbs instead of 5 or use that new virtual analog synthesizer plugin that emulates each transistor of some old korg synth perfectly and he will and his computer will choke just as before. Peoples needs are different. Just because you can't think of uses for extra CPU cycles does not mean other people can't and if your program wastes those cycles people will buy from someone else.

In the context of everything else that is available (R, etc), yes.

Why would anyone use Excel for anything?

The only problem with this is, of course, that what they claim to be doing (automatically examining code for defects) is literally impossible.

since when is old news considered new and exciting research?