There's some confusion here, the comparison between huge traps and balanced musculature (which I'm in complete agreement with you about) doesn't address pencil necks at all, but in context it sounds like you think pencil necks are included under "balanced musculature".

Pencil necks != decent balanced musculature, and look at least as bad as oversized traps (often even worse).

I think you have to take the context into account here. When all it's assigned to do is display one high-res video stream from disk without dropping frames, a core 2 duo isn't just impressive, it's ridiculously overpowered.

I took his point to be not bragging about his hardware in general, but illustrating that the problem in this case is the software, not that he's trying to run modern programs on an ancient machine that isn't really built for it.

I can't speak with firm authority but the "cigarette burns" (cues to change the reel) are simple black blobs, whereas I'm pretty sure the red-dot-matrixes being mentioned are a more recent invention, form a unique identifying grid, and aren't in the same location as the burns.

Yep, google confirmed, here's an article on it, complete with screencaps of the burns and the grids (but you'll have to squint to see em).