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For as long as I can remember the most debated Java topic has been the difference in opinion on the heap size minimum = maximum with lots of urban myths and legends that having them equal was better. In a conversation with a number of colleagues and Chris Bailey who has lead the Java platform for many years he clarified the settings for the IBM JVM based on generational vs non-generational policy settings.
"The guidance [for generational garbage collection policy] is that you should fix the nursery size: -Xmns == -Xmnx, and allow the tenured heap to vary: -Xmos != -Xmox. For non generational you only have a tenured heap, so -Xms != -Xmx applies.
The reason being that the ability to expand the heap adds resilience into the system to avoid OutOfMemoryErrors. If you're then worried about the potential cost of expansion/shrinkage that this introduces by causing compactions, then that can be mitigated by adjusting -Xmaxf and -Xminf to make expand/shrink a rare event."
A link to Chris Bailey's presentation on generational garbage collection http://www.slideshare.net/cnbailey/tuning-ibms-generational-gc-14062096
[edit to correct typo, added tags]
