This is the same idea applied as above. We're amortizing the cost of a linked list by designing a data structure that requires only paying that cost once per entire "collection" of elements, not per element. We're linking collections of elements notnow, not each and every element individually.
If you have to drive an hour just to get a cup of coffee, then the solution isn't necessarily to look for a faster car. It might be a whole lot easier if you just stock up on a month's worth of coffee instead, unless there's like a pretty girl working at the counter that you want to see each time, at which point you might look into a faster car. Design at a coarse level for bulk processing. That's the easiest way to reduce these costs paid on a per-object basis for teeny little objects.