"You'll waste a little every orbit, sure. Then you'll waste a lot when your hand hits and it's still beaten. "

Amen. I have tightened up in the small blind and it has plugged a leak in my game. It's not so much the little waste seeing the flop, and definitely not the rare occasions where you flop a great hand like 2pair, as the number of times you'll hit a marginal hand that you are forced to play.

E.g. I limp in the little blind with Q-6 and the flop comes 5-7-Q. Sometimes you can lay this down if there's lots of action but many times you'll find yourself taking it to the river and losing with your bad kicker. Another one is limping with cards 8-4 suited and hitting a flush draw. Great, you make your flush! Aw, you got beaten by a bigger flush.

I lost more money than I won on these kinds of hands before actually going back to Sklansky's advice about preflop play in the little blind - play only what you'd also play from late position. Now, he does recommed playing any 2 suited cards in the little blind but I am not so sure about that. He probably knows better than me though