Free-ish markets also consume much more natural resources and are the least sustainable from that standpoint. Also, our western 'free' markets thrive on the backs of cheap labour countries. Without them things would not look so free anymore. The 'freedom' of the world markets is enforced with violence. "What did you say, Saddam? You want to sell oil to china and not to us? Fuck you, we will take your country and rape it for decades."
Free markets can be pretty abusive and selfish. So you have to ask yourself if the prosperity justifies the damage they can do. At the very least you would have to be ready with dealing with the inevitable scaling problems of free economies. People with moey and power are in the position to outgrow all and everyone.
So this is, unfortunately, not an optimum by itself. It will grow out of proportions because people are powerhungry assholes.

So my assertion is that you cannot have a large free market without some statist control. Free markets can only exist within other structures that guarantee the internal freedoms. The problem with markets is that on the outside, and even within if the market becomes more complex, the market does not care. Markets, if left uncontroled, are perfectly capable of destroying the very soil they get their produce from. People, on average, are not good in these games and this allows a small group of individuals to win the market.
The normal historical transaction is something like this: Some free market emerges, market gets so big it attracts criminals and tricksters, market gets hijacked by clever manipulation, not by providing best product to where its needed, public outcry for regulations. Rince, repeat.
That is why markets can only be relatively free. They will always start to abuse their freedom and so we get these regulations.

If purely free markets were possible then everyone would do that instead, right?