well.. google does have nice browser plugins for "how do I optimize the loading speed of my web page".. which includes suggestions to recompress giff files etc.
some webmasters use this, and google uses their "faster loading web pages give higher ad revenue" angle to suggest to webmasters to use these tools.
so not all hope is lost... there's a story on this that goes from the pointy hair to the web monkey to the guy with clue who runs the tool and sees the suggestion.....