Well, it still works for me. But we know now that this is not always 30%. Smaller inodes mean less memory overhead to keep them, which can make a huge difference if your amount of RAM is between 0.5 and 1 GB per TB of stored data. For this ratio with standard inodes you pretty much need SSD for decent operation, while with smaller inodes you can easily get by without.
On the other hand, if you still are above 1 GB per 1 TB of stored data, you will barely see difference, and only in the first file walker that hits the drive.