My memory on this is a little sketchy, but I think that when you make a call on a virtual function, the virtual function table must be consulted before method invocation, whereas non-virtual functions ...
Embedded C developers shy away from C++ out of concern for performance. The class construct is one of their main concerns. My previous article Code Craft – Embedding C++: Classes explored whether ...
Again, any class with at least one pure virtual function is an abstract class. If you can't create any such objects, then you don't have to worry that you might call a pure virtual function.