[iirvine]

That's kind of the point, at least as I understand it. You want to minimize the number virtual nodes that need to be reconciled to actual DOM nodes. If nothing about a parent's props or state has changed, then ideally nothing should have to change about any of its children.

http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/advanced-performance.ht... has the best description of this process I've found so far.