Profiled with scripts/profile-tui.py under hold-PageUp + hold-wheel.
The placeholder → microtask-upgrade pattern did not reduce renderer
p99 (63ms → 63ms) or max (96ms → 142ms, slightly worse). Each fresh
row still pays the Md cost — just on a follow-up commit instead of
inline — and the follow-up commit shows up as a second heavy frame
a few ms later.
The real bottlenecks turned out to be:
1. wheel step too large (fixed in 7ca16eea)
2. outer terminal ANSI parse throughput (diagnosing next)
3. React commit frequency during hold-scroll (needs coalescing)
None of which DeferredMd addresses. Clearing the complexity so the
next experiments land on a simpler substrate.