>>I
actually don't know how many plugins are LTI, but, for example, a
>>lot of delays, reverbs, choruses, eq. filters, compressors, modulators
>>and "sound mixers" should be, and that's quite enough after all.
 Yeah, It's a good optimization.  The SynthEdit plugin API supports
 inputs being flagged as 'linear', if several such plugins are used in
 parallel they are automatically collapsed into a single instance which
 is fed the summed signals of the original plugins.  Plugin are
 collapsed  only when their control inputs are the same.
 BEFORE optimation:
 [plugin]-->[delay1]------>
 [plugin]-->[delay2]-/
 AFTER:
 [plugin]--->[delay1]--->
 [plugin]-/
  e.g. two parallel 100ms delays are combined.  Two different length
 delays aren't.
   This is most useful in synth patches where each voice is an
 identical parallel sub-patch.
 Jeff McClintock
 
  How often are more than one plugin with the same control inputs used in
 paralel? I was rather thinking of colapsing (or swapping) plugins in
 series. They'd have to be linear and time invariant, of course.
 Or maybe plugins could 'know' how to colapse themselves, sort of like
 overriding Plugin::operator+(const Plugin&), to use a C++ metaphor.