We need to keep it all in perspective, though -
(a) if you take on cumulus granitus .. you lose
(b) if you overstress and pull off the wings .. you lose
(c) etc.
As Roger G (AN ops eng boss for quite some time) used to observe .. "the pilots give us a hard time on performance but never seem to hassle the structures guys about the tin bits"
In an ideal world, flight crews would have a basic working knowledge of all the supporting engineering stuff .. it's just that the ops engineering areas (weight and balance, and performance) are two areas in which crews can either be a very useful last ditch safety link in the mishap chain .. or, conversely, foul things up really quickly. Hence these topics tend to get the lion's share of the attention.
It only takes a couple of runway limiting departures where the pilot observes the upwind threshold markings disappear under the nose before liftoff to really get the attention focussed on the sensible need for a bit of understanding of performance matters.
performance is taught in the afternoon after a heavy pasta lunch.
that's the really sad bit. And the reason why we encourage all these sorts of techo discussions on PPRuNe .. the defacto background pilot engineering endorsement program ...