Road tuning ignition timing for lower loads

Ive noticed most demonstrations for road tuning show how to tune the fuel and ignition at WOT and fueling for lower loads but not ignition optimizing for lower loads and cruising? Is this because the engine is not knock limited at lower loads and torque cant be measured? How would one go about getting timing close at lower loads and cruising while road tuning? Ive also noticed ignition seems to be advanced much more at low load and gets retarded as rpm and load increase, is this a standard thing across the board with most engines?

Optimising the low load areas can be a little tricky since we don't have torque feedback, and even if we could do this on a dyno we don't have the ability in most instances to live-tune the ignition map. This is less of an issue when reflashing compared to tuning a standalone ECU though since we aren't starting from a blank timing map. This means that the factory timing map is likely to be close to the ball park already in the cruise areas, and since we tend to see a plateau in the torque as we get close to MBT, the torque really doesn't change much. What I tend to look for instead is activity from the knock control system in cruise or low load that may indicate the timing is over advanced.