With the new cars having onboard computers to regulate air and gas intake for maximum efficiency, does it make sense to purposely obstruct part of the air intake to allow the computer to reduce the gas and thereby conserve on gas - even in light of the reduced power?
NO, thats what the throttle plate is for!!!
Agreed. The throttle plate does a very good job of that as it is.
Americar put it beautifully. Restricting the air intake by using less pressure on the throttle is the way to go.
Remember that your ECU coompares your air intake (via your mass airflow sensor) with the throttle position sensor, the manifold absolute pressure, crank speed sensor, crank position sensor, temp sensor, and oxygen sensor to determine how much gas to add (how wide to pulse the injectors). If one of these readings is out of whack with its normal range with regard to the other readings the OBDII system has the capability to detect the abnormality and trip a code. Beyond which it might say “huh?” and not know what the correct pulsewidth should be.
Rename your gas pedal. Call it the “gas mileage pedal”. That’ll give you a different perspective.