If my analysis of water usage from bills for the last 10 months is accurate, my concern for softener service flow rate was overblown.
My broad (and not very precise) assumptions were:
a- Water use is the same every day,
b- Most water use is during 12 hours each day,
c- Sprinkler water use can be ignored.
Of course these are generalizations and could be wrong just like other generalizations but I think I'm not too far off. Probably the highest per minute use is in the morning when everyone is getting ready for work/school. If I had a smarter meter, I could get a whole lot better idea of the highest gallons/minute consumed.
I suspect with the automation of everything, we're not far off from having the controller manufacturers smartening their next models.