You must be what we refer to as a "real" engineer. Your post references the EXACT issue (and the only issue, he's really a great guy) I have with my boss of the past 9 years.I know it's my personal prejudice, but when, for example, we calculate process temperatures and vapor fractions my answers are along the lines of "10 ppm methane at about 85F". My boss, asked the same question answers "9.879 ppm methane at 84.067F". It just drives me insane when the boundary conditions are about as well defined as a blob of whipped cream.
I blame computers; Colin probably didn't work in the era (I started at the tail-end)when you had to turn in your hand written calcs on quadrille paper for peer check. Not too many "9.8705 kips" solutions in those days.
From my perspective while extreme precision may well be a very good when working in deep sub-micron lithography, the application of that sort of precision to loudspeakers is fairly ridiculous - the whipped cream boundary condition problem again.