> Putting custom tweaks into your drivers that are activated for specific processes is pretty common practice

i despise this practice, because it locks performance behind specific drivers. Why shouldn't the driver/graphics api be able to be programmed with the same level of performance by the developers for the app, instead of having manual tweaks happen at the graphics driver level?

This is how nvidia (previously at least) have an unfair advantage over AMD in the graphics card market. I'd call it an anti-competitive practice.