The compiler is your friend

Because gcc main uses are *not* in "we have less than 8Kb of stack and that's _it_ - overflow it and you are dead" kind of situation. The kernel, OTOH, is, and there's nothing we or gcc folks can do about that. And no, it's not something you can realistically cure with an option controlling how optimizer works; you'll have it rotting all the time, not to mention the nightmare it would be to maintain it on the gcc side.

So no, you can't just trust the compiler to DTRT, since for most of its users the right thing is seriously different. We are overusing inline, no arguments about that, but it's not as simple as "just let the compiler choose".