The most instructive part of this are the listings from the changelogs alongwith the resulting improved performance. I'm really enjoying the C++ tunings. I wish they did show the results with the google hashes, though.
You're right that there may not be much improvement, but I've seen the google dense_hash_map do better sometimes than the basic SGI hash_map.
Edit: the code repo has the unoptimized versions. Oh well, at least I can get the satisfaction of seeing the 30% myself :)
afaict Yes, they left the internal version out completely (besides the changelog).
Notice C++ Dbg has the same wc -l as C++ Opt.