BluePhaze
just was reading this and i think your point about vram usage is not quite right (if i understood you right)
i quote ashley here (from optimize blog responses about vram)
"only the source image is kept in memory (what you see in the image editor"
so this means that a stretched out pixel uses less vram then lets say a 32*x32 black image or transparent image, so stretching it over the screen will not add to vram, but is not advised because your likely to have more overdraw (stacking images) wich i read is slow on mobile and also that transparency overdraw and transparency in general is slower for the gpu than opaque
also using the same image(sprite) multiple times doesn't increase vram, it is however slower using lots of objects