User blog comment:Dustpirate/Do Stores become unnecessary?/@comment-5109847-20120615185416

Until you get to 50, the opposite seems to be true. At 38 and above the stores are worth more per pixel than any decorations pretty much (I'm not counting Wonders, lamp posts, and crystal generating stuff). The Apple Store, for example, returns 3500 coins just over ever 4 hours on the medium recipe. Assuming you buy the 900 food required to make the recipe, and assuming it is at a super-high 1000 coins per that 900 (it isn't, but just assuming), you still make 2500 coins every 4 hours, per 16 pixels, which is 39 coins per pixel per hour. Giant emeralds, the most efficient decorations you can buy unlimited numbers of, generate 41.67 per pixel per hour. Given that you don't usually spend 1000 on the food, and you also get a TON of xp as well, the Apple Store is more efficient than any decoration. Higher stores are typically even more efficient.

In other words, once you reach 38, it is actually better to replace every single decoration with an Apple Store (or better). Of course, most people don't really go to that extreme, since you need houses, most of us need at least one of each resource plot to buy it from the market, and it gets boring to see nothing but stores. But if you want to talk efficiency, no, decorations are not the way to go at the high end.