>Yup, but late binding also increases performance.

Late binding increases performance where late binding is necessary, e.g., where it replaces a DO CASE or other conditional. Where it does not, it is slower than early binding. Most function calls can use early binding, hence the net result is a slowdown at runtime. On the other hand, I believe it makes programming easier.

Whether the runtime slowdown really matters--especially in a database context, where I/O is the predominant bottleneck--is a different matter.