Does setting the bash shell option 'checkhash' actually improve the performance of bash commands?

Question

Premise: In the process of modifying .bashrc, and going through the bash manual for shopt online page for the different shell options that can be handled by shopt, I came across the option checkhash, which according to the description:

checkhash
    If this is set, Bash checks that a command found in the hash table exists 
    before trying to execute it. 
    If a hashed command no longer exists, a normal path search is performed.

Questions:

1. Is this option useful, i.e, does it increase the performance of the bash commands?
2. If, yes, why is the default value set to off?
3. If, no, why does the option exist in the first place, is it something to do with older hardware?

Answer 1

I think that that setting is supposed to improve the user experience, not the "performance".

It should save you from having to run hash -r by hand when you moved or removed an executable.

Compare:

bash$ mkdir -p first second; PATH=$PATH:first:second
bash$ echo echo ok > first/ok; chmod 755 first/ok
bash$ ok
ok
bash$ mv first/ok second/ok
bash$ ok
bash: first/ok: No such file or directory
   # Yet it's in the PATH!
bash$ hash -r
bash$ ok
ok

versus

bash$ shopt -s checkhash
bash$ mv second/ok first/ok
bash$ ok
ok
bash$ mv first/ok second/ok
bash$ ok
ok
bash$