At some point last year (maybe 2 years ago) my node was saturating my upload to the point where normal web browsing would not function smoothly. I had to reduce max connections (to around 20) in order to continue supporting the network. I guess a gimped node is better than none at all.
I'm not sure your concept of "gimped" makes any sense.
20 inbound connections is enough to broadcast to the entire network and then some in 3 hops.
Why is it "gimped" to not completely saturate your uplink 24/7 without any QoS measures in place?
There are people who want historical block chain data. My node is either available to provide it to them or it isn't.
I'm either doing more to strengthen the network or doing less to strengthen the network.
It may not seem important when there are thousands of other nodes capable of doing the job... but that's kind of my point.