>>>>>HTTP/1.1 204 No Content It is 25 bytes (maybe 26 with a blank line after the header), 127 bytes leaner.<<<<<

This makes me think HTTP Protocol is forcing too many bytes here. Can it be made any lower? Many use cases might not need headers at all !

Yeah. At the very least, I wish 204 had a smaller string at the end like "200 OK" to save some more bytes.