Well if you're storing integers or other other small (8-byte) elements, then sure. But if you are storing pointers to objects, then you'll have the overhead of a load (in the comparison function). If you are embedding the objects, then the larger it is the more "copy-overhead" you will have as you move these large elements around when re-balancing and so on. But I don't have the numbers for this, so it might be insignificant overhead. I have it on my todo-list to benchmark embedded-larger-elements and pointers to those elements. Anyway, just something to consider.