>I was surprized the HTML/XML generation takes longer (multiple times!) than measured browser time. Of course such string handling will be faster in C/C++ code, but that one was the real surprise. "Internet" = Web server and transmission times lumped together?

Back in 2002 I had a routine which generated a very complicated table-within-table-within... (4 levels) with about 700 links in 0,7 seconds, in VFP7. Using mostly textmerge, IIRC.