I think Dave LeCompte was trying to argue that if you know how much CPU you have, you can use it to better effect in your game -- for example with more accurate physics or more realistic AI. I don't necessarily agree with this argument, but it's better than just busy-looping.
If that was Dave's argument, then I totally missed his point. Doing _something_ with the CPU is definitely better than busy-looping. I would also say that doing _nothing_ with the CPU is better than busy-looping.
I think having a game (or any program) that arbitrarily behaves different on different machines is generally a bad thing and should be made extremely clear to the user if done at all. In particular I think "gaming" the program by running more programs so you get a dumber AI is something you might want to be aware of.
Good points. Ethan++
~ Nathan