Elder Scrolls Forum on Encumbrance states:
"Carry Limit is not only a realistic challenge to players, but it is also a means of preserving the performance of the game. For example, if a player were to use a glitch to bypass the Carry Weight completely, and reached an overall encumbrance of 5,000, their game performance will have dropped significantly. "
First of all I respect and admire this forum and have found it extremely helpful. That said, I think it's hilarious to use the term "glitch" above when another part of the forum offers a vast array of "Console Commands" that do everything up to and including finishing every quest in the game. Glitch? Really?
Sardonic humor aside, I would like someone to explain exactly why/how this alleged performance drop would come about. My code writing aunt and her game developer brother in law have not been able to explain it for me.
I understand carry weight was a challenge intentionally built into the game, but I do not believe it has anything to do with game performance, given the game can handle the "stress" of the Dragonborn now having the capacity to own several residences, each with furnishings (in addition to those the Dragonborn crafts her/himself) many of which can hold an endless array of weighted objects.
Whether those items are stored on the person of the player or in a chest is irrelevant; it's just computer code. All those items are not in motion at once. They are stored, just like anything else is stored.
I personally do not believe in "cheating" through the game, at least on my first playthrough, but perhaps in the future I may use console commands to make gameplay run a little smoother and quicker. Aside from that I've just used commands to fix flaws/bugs in the game.
I really consider the super-low carry weight a flaw...and I come from FFXI and FFXIV, the most grinding games in the history of gaming!
I really hope someone can explain how "glitching" carry weight destroys game performance. I would especially love to hear form all the people who have already "glitched" theirs and are still playing.