if you have the latest licensed SLES or red hat. the online update needs no more recompile, sometimes it just need reboot or nothing at all.
is it better to recompile the kernel for optimum performance after any patch? or is it really just a ritual so that you can feel that you are the follower of mr. torvalds or you feel you can do the same?
You lost me on the Linus comment, but If your running a oem kernel with lots of bloat to it and you feel confident you can handle taking out that bloat and there is a benefit sure why not. The process is pretty easy once you prune down a lot of the easy waste (video, networking, filesystems) as well and is easy to justify if you have a number of similar machines.
If a lot of the components are modules /options that are unneeded but are patched by the oem frequently you might also save some maintenance.