What about variable width?

I had been printing lithophane maker coins... note to self, make a post about my new maker coins. Anyways, I was making lithophanes, the best settings for which are 1 shell, 100% infill, 0 top layers (since the infill covers that). Then when I switched to another print, a quarter top of a cylinder, and I changed the infill back to 20%... but forgot the shells and top layers settings, and this is the result.

The weird thing is the sides are just fine. Perfect in fact.

I recently saw a video about audodesk's varislice. When I saw the video I was like, I never print something so perfectly angled in heights. And then I print this thing. Ah well. The thing is, I don't mind variable height, in fact I love the idea of saving time by doing thicker layers where you can. But what about variable width? A lot of time number of shells is treated as a constant, as well it should be. Fewer shells is a theoretically weaker part, more shells is a theoretically stronger part. Theoretically. Someone should test this. Anyways, what if the goal was speed and minimizing material usage then layer height isn't the only consideration. Top layers generally handles this, but increasing the number of shells in the area could do it, possibly better.

I think this really illustrates that we aren't done advancing slicers at all and there's still a lot to be excited by.