We recently bought a laser cutter and realised that adage is based on the assumption that the cutting takes the longest time.
Now if we want a really good fit we do a binary search on the cut dimensions.
Our new laser cutter adage is "cut loads and don't bother measuring because it doesn't take into account the size of your cut"
The adage is based on the fact that you can't "undo" a cut too short. If you need a 6' board, and cut it to 5'10", you've probably just wasted a perfectly good piece of lumber.
