I was referring to this statement: "Well, the script could be slow as dirt, but if it has a few extra weeks to churn through data and produce results, it may be done before the C program is even ready."

The comparison of development times and running times simply makes no sense if you assume the script is going to run a 1000 times. I agree that this relationship isn't linear. That's exactly why it's pointless to compare the the two numbers as if it were. The only number that is comparable is probably the profit you make in each case.