I'm sorry if I'm taking a bigger view and not having much success explaining it but I'll be just as clear as possible here:

The simple fact that you want to remove your washer bottles or whatever - that you think it is a "good thing" - is PROOF that you believe that it will indeed give you SOME kind of advantage. If you thought it would make you slower, you wouldn't do it - ergo, you think it makes you faster.

If I told any given IT entrant, "You need to do (whatever) to your car for the 2007 season," he or she would absolutely, positively assess whether or not it provided a relative advantage. If it did not, they would oppose it. If it did - cool! "Heck, yeah - I'll do that."

I removed my passenger outside rear view mirror. It took about 15 minutes (remote cables, you know), and cost four pieces of black tape to cover up the hole. I KNOW that it did not result in a measurable, repeatable increase in performance but equally, I did it knowing that less mass is good, that it was a couple of pounds mounted above the CG, and it was poking out in the wind. I took it off because I thought it would, however infinitesimally, make ... the ... car ... faster.

K