My tests have shown otherwise, SSL just isn't worth it for me speedwise as it hurts TTFB (50ms vs almost 300ms on the smallest DO VPS). SSL overhead is further exacerbated by distance between the origin server and the receiver. Unfortunately session cache doesn't help for the initial handshake which is what I'm concerned with.
I agree some performance analysis services do not always give the best advice. I still like minimalism and efficiency so will be concatenating and minifying where possible which will keep my clients happy when they see performance tests.
Does new relic show MySQL slow queries? I use the plugin Query Monitor to identify suboptimal plugins and report the issues to the developers. I prefer to avoid php and mysql almost altogether, Varnish makes this possible 