> The biggest caveat is the lack of prefetcher simulation
Certainly an important point, but only relevant if what you are doing had a hope of being prefetched in the first place. Maybe the tool could be extended to give an idea of how 'prefetchable' something is? This should be simpler than a full prefetcher simulation. Then you can concentrate on the cache misses it predicts that are unlikely to prefetched. The tool is more focussed on pointing out areas you can improve, it doesn't matter if it gets it wrong sometimes.
Certainly an important point, but only relevant if what you are doing had a hope of being prefetched in the first place. Maybe the tool could be extended to give an idea of how 'prefetchable' something is? This should be simpler than a full prefetcher simulation. Then you can concentrate on the cache misses it predicts that are unlikely to prefetched. The tool is more focussed on pointing out areas you can improve, it doesn't matter if it gets it wrong sometimes.