Certainly there's a difference between what I said and the traditional phrasing of the dilemma; certainly the idea of sacrificing oneself versus another is a big one.
But the OP was asking for an instrumentalist reason to choose torture over dust specks. It is pretty far-fetched to imagine that literally torturing someone will actually accomplish... well, almost anything, unless they're a supervillain creating a contrived scenario in which you have to torture them.
When you will actually be trading quality of life for barely-tangible benefit on a large scale is torturing yourself working at a startup. This is an actual decision that people make to make lives miserable in exchange for minor but widespread public goods. And I fully support the actual trades of this sort that people actually make.
That's my instrumentalist argument for, as a human being, accepting the metaphor of dust specks versus torture, not my philosophical argument for a decision theory that selects it.
Was there any reason to think I didn't understand exactly what you said the first time? You agree with me and then restate. Fine, but pointless. Additionally, unimaginative re: potential value of torture. Defending lack of imagination in that statement by claiming torture defined in part by primary intent would be inconsistent.
Admitting to being wrong isn't easy, but it's something we want to encourage.
So ... were you convinced by someone's arguments lately? Did you realize a heated disagreement was actually a misunderstanding? Here's the place to talk about it!