1. A method of planning deployment of optical network elements (ONEs) in a processor of an electronic device, the method comprising: in the processor of the electronic device, the processor operatively coupled to at least one memory, initializing models of ONEs within a topology of ONEs with a model of an amplifier with amplification and noise characteristics compatible with respective ONEs, the topology being a representation of a real world optical network topology stored in the at least one memory; in the processor of the electronic device, computing an optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) margin table as a function of the topology and model of amplification and noise characteristics, negative OSNR margins in the OSNR margin table representing optical regenerations within the topology; in the processor of the electronic device, iteratively replacing models of low-gain amplifiers operating at a high gain setting within a range of operating gain settings for the models of low-gain amplifiers with models of high-gain amplifiers operating at a low gain setting within a range of operating gain settings for the models of high-gain amplifiers with corresponding amplification and noise characteristics within at least a subset of the models of ONEs and recomputing the OSNR margin table to change the representation of the real world optical network topology by reducing the number of negative OSNR margins within the OSNR margin table to reduce the corresponding optical regenerations within the topology stored in the at least one memory; and in the processor of the electronic device, reporting indications of amplifiers represented by the models of amplifiers after a given number of iterations.