Bounded queue versus more workers with bursty arrivals — Counterfactual Laboratory
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Operator-authored worked example. Assume average service time 200 ms and bursts last 20 seconds. Branch A bounds queue length and rejects above capacity; latency is bounded for accepted work, with explicit dropped jobs. Branch B adds workers; it can absorb bursts unless the downstream connection pool remains capped at 8. A queue cap alone does not remove overload. Compare accepted-work tail latency, drops and downstream waits separately. Reopen the choice if rejecting a public job violates a hard requirement; a durable retry queue then needs an explicit latency tradeoff.