Consensus opinion improving perf w/o degrading IQ

Not long ago I surmised the IQ scale (image quality) has shifted to the right slightly in the past few updates such that High settings might be generating a bit better IQ than it did in past times.  I hoped this anyway since I've had to dial back settings more than in the past, yet IQ has been decent more or less.

A little longer ago I was able to fly the TBM over Washington DC w/ nearly all settings on Ultra, 16xAF/8xSSAA, LOD 200/200, RS 100 and had perfectly smooth flight.  I took several screen shots, here's one.  This is so much more detailed and busy than was my landing at KIAD a few minutes ago, where I had dialed back IQ to mostly High settings, 16xAF/8xSSAA, but dialed back LOD to 100/100 and still had awful stuttering and was unable to maintain consistent vsync to 30Hz.  I don't get it quite frankly.   Also, previously I was able to easily adjust GPU-intensive sliders when GPU utilization approached >=95% such that we were unable to maintain the 30fps required when vsyncing to 30Hz to generate smooth video.  Now I can see 80% GPU, 70% CPU, and flying into KIAD was a stuttering show stopper once again despite vastly lowered settings.

I'm guessing, especially w/ the decoupling of monitoring GPU/CPU utilization as a way to predict when stuttering will ensue and so allow one to stop and adjust sliders w/ a predictable response, that there really is no good solution to be had for the title of this post.  I wrote this having recently been stoked to be able to land in certain airports, even rather benign ones like KSBA, again by reducing most settings to High, only to become exceedingly disappointed yet again w/ my recent landing at KIAD (from KSAV).   The scene in the screenshot below is vastly more complex than what I saw coming into KIAD.