Expanding

Sorry if this has been asked before – I couldn’t find any reference to it.
Basically, 2 questions….

1). Is is worth my while replacing <?php get_footer(); ?> with the actual html of my footer.php?

I’m trying to speed up my website http://www.aTasteofGarlic.com and have so far reduced load time from 4.7 seconds to 2.8 seconds – partly by installing W3 Super Cache but also by tidying up the database, reducing image size and replacing PHP database calls by static html links (where possible.)

By replacing <?php get_footer(); ?> with the actual html, I reduce the number of PHP calls by one – is this worth doing or, is this a NO-NO for reasons that I’m not aware of?

Obviously, I could do this with every file that calls <?php get_footer(); ?>

I could potentially do the same with <?php get_sidebar(); ?> as my sidebar.php is very simple.

I’m aware that the template would become less portable as a result.

2). All the PHP files have a lot of white space and some comments – is it worth while compressing these files?

i.e. changing

<!-- End of that bit of the file - I updated this on 29/02/1966 -->
</div>
       </div>

              </div>
              <!--  Don't forget that last div!  -->

</div>

to

</div></div></div></div>
Here’s hoping that someone can help me to understand this…

All the best

Keith