yup, all very good points. there are losses everywhere. some of which we can control, and others, such as i.r. in the batteries, and in all of the internals of our components, we cannot.

the idea here is to select the parameters that are in our control, and optimize the quality of both the execution and of our decisions.

with the idea to make sure all the little pieces are taken care of, it would appear to me that one of those things would be selecting the correct wire gauge. or perhaps the maximum practical wire gauge. while the "resistance density", if you will, in a connection is very high, the relative length of the connection is small, so the overall voltage drop across it should still be small when compared to that of the wires themselves. the thickness of a soldered connection is very small (.00X"). because the wire is 1000's of times longer the absolute resistance of it will likely be higher, and therefore have a larger impact on overall numbers.

i am speaking in general, and perhaps, my thoughts are errant. i would just have a hard time trading a .009v/cell drop to keep the wires light and flexible.

why do we pay the $ for top cells, when we could loose the very numbers that we are paying for by selecting a less than optimal wire gauge? i appologize if my statements are superficial, but i am still of the opinion that wire gauge selection is anything but insignificant.