I don't think that the shaders are the problem of the Crysis performance issues. Crysis needs a multi-core processor for all the scene-management, AI, physics and similar stuff. I am sure they have good shader setup with fall-backs like TGEA has.

The system of procedurally generated shaders is also very good. In TGEA you can add in your material a normal-map texture and it automatically genereates the needed shader code for it. If you add a spec map another part of code gets attached.

Other tools like Gamecore use tons of conditional statements in a multi-purpose shader to reach the same goal. There is much more possible with shaders than we see in our Wiki.

This kind of shader code, material code and application of shadows is a proof of good programming other than Inestical said in his last post.
In the TGEA editor you can place any polygonal model and press the re-light-button to get new static shadows. This is good programming as well.