When/Why to use Routing for indexing/searching

Shay indicated here that routing will always resolve to a single shard.

So, is ES maintaining an internal "index" (by "index", i mean someway of identifying the specific shard for a specific routing id)?

ES would need to somehow map a specific routing id to a specific shard, I would presume.

If so, is there an overhead of maintaining such a relationship? (from memory used and insertion time standpoint)? For e.g., What is the overhead in how ES processes a document coming in without needing a routing would VS a document coming in needing a specific routing?

"http://elasticsearch-users.115913.n3.nabble.com/When-Why-to-use-Routing-for-indexing-searching-td3789570.html#a3790713"

Thanks in advance for responses,
Elan.