I troll the public stream of WPT test results looking for good examples of poor performing sites. After much searching, I finally found a test with the worst possible score, FFFFFX:
The funny thing is that I was a little disappointed at how “not terrifyingly ugly” the waterfall looks compared to some of the better-scoring results I’ve come across. Take this one for example: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/130211_CX_KZJ/
I’m maintaining a list of what I call the “Worst of WebPagetest”, which I hope to share soon.
Sadly there is no good way to tell that there are too many requests or that a page is too big because we don’t know what the content is that you are trying to present to the user (though some extremes may be worth calling out).
We sort of operate under the assumption that all of the content you deliver to your users is necessary and we focus on HOW you deliver that content. Clearly the assumption that all of the content is necessary is not always a good one.
Can’t wait to see your list - the real world is a scary place some times.