VRChat

depends. if i can feasibly optimize the avatar in unity, i will. however, if the only way for me to optimize the avatar is to use blender (decimation, atlasing, having UV maps reuse texture bits, combining skinned meshes, and more) then it's not worth the effort, because that could be a week-long process depending on how many issues i encounter.

Every time VRchat gets more strict, more people flow to ChilloutVR. That's where all the unoptimized avatars go and it's laggy enough to make me sick.

I think it depends on what you’re using it for. If you’re going to a big party I think a better optimized avatar is kinda respectful to the people around you (plus higher likelihood that other people will actually see you). If it’s just you and a few people hanging out though, doesn’t typically matter

Avatar performance ranking for me is more of a guide/suggestion than an absolute, it's not going to be able to account for certain things that might be more optimized than what it suggests and sometimes ends up being counter intuitive.