[Q] Gingerbread or Kitkat? topic

I commend google for keeping their phones updated far longer than other companies do, but there's a point where it becomes inconvenient. For the nexus S, that point is called android 4.x

now that I've unlocked my bootloader, I'm contemplating downgrading to gingerbread (with an older version of cyanogenmod I guess), but I've heard that kitkat is actually less of a resource hog than the earlier 4.x versions. Is that true? how would it compare, requirements-wise, against gingerbread?