Lua memory and [[Template:ja-r]]

Curious about this. Where the {{ja-r}} template is not used inline in running text, such as these Derived Terms lists, I've often preferred the format of {{ja-r|[TERM]|[KANA]}}: [GLOSS] anyway, which would avoid any issue of embedded [[bracket links]] causing Lua problems.

Was your self-reversion because you discovered that [[bracket links]] actually didn't have any Lua memory impact?

Yes, I reverted myself because I didn't see any improvement after I made a null edit and a hard purge. I did believe that having those links inside the template arguments caused the Lua errors. It's possible that I just needed to wait longer to see the improvement... I have been out of things for too long and I don't remember the details on how the caching works.