[Fat Charlie]

Faster Acceleration... reaches gliding speed sooner.

You're exactly right about the difference between energy efficiency and fuel efficiency. All of this is vehicle specific and situation specific, and pointless once the driver has a gauge and can learn the car and how best to apply it.

Overall, I'm with the "accelerate harder" crowd in most situations because pulsing longer than is called for is burning gas longer than is called for. Even "harder" is realtive- this isn't exactly a crowd that bounces off the rev limiter.