[elhigh]

I'm with Ecky and Daschicken. Lots of ECU and transmission control systems learn their drivers' behavior anymore, and tailor their own behavior to match. Without digging into whether your car is so equipped, I'm still willing to make the assumption that either or both are behaving they way their programming assumes you want them to behave.

Flooring it once in a while just gives the computer a Gibbs slap, in this case not entirely deserved.

I would wager you're losing some of your gains by doing so, but not all. And then there's this: if you know that gains have been made, why are you cancelling them out? You're aware of the car's behavior but let's face it, neither of your vehicles are especially quick so your default reaction in an emergency would never be to floor it, but stomp and steer out of trouble. Why floor it at all?