Got curious by the tmpfs thingy and googled around a bit.

Seems like tmpfs is needed for POSIX compliancy in linux.
The fact that it's not used by any programs at this time can only mean IMHO that they put it there to make porting programs between OS's easier, and that it might be used by future programs???
Ok, so I read that the shm_open function in glibc needs it, but what uses it? Anyone?
You could also try moving over your /tmp to a mount under tmpfs and see if things speed up.

You can do a "locate tmpfs.txt" to have a look, I have it under:
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.6.2/Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt
/usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.4.24-xfs-fe-dm1/Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt.gz

Some explanation:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...ary/l-fs3.html

Ergo, it doesn't seem to do much harm (bit larger kernel & a little wasted RAM) but will probably be needed sometimes soon.