Have never dug into Spigot code see what all it does to improve ticks and whatnot (i.e. if it solves for the following), but was surprised I'd never read anything on this before with hoppers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEi-tKrxDNk

Basically - put an inventory block on top of hoppers that aren't ever going to be 'pulling' from above to reduce their impact to ticks.

Edited by kagato on April 30, 2017 at 20:11:01