Normalization is a tool like anything else. You can’t make absolute statements about it.

That's exactly my point. I specifically said that normalization is independent of optimizations, it might help, it might not. It was specifically in response to your absolute statement about normalization being critical to performance, and I quote:

Normalization is a performance optimization.

Emphasis taken directly from your quote.

Normalization has very little to do with optimization and it's one of the least cited reasons (if cited at all), for doing it.