Do you know of a brute-force algorithm for optimizing polynomial expressions?
"Brute-force" in the context of factoring polynomials may involve factoring of integers, which is a hard problem. Factoring polynomials is easier, e.g. look up "FACTORING MULTIVARIATE POLYNOMIALS VIA PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS" by Gao, and "Factoring Multivariate polynomials over the integers" by Wang and Rothschild.