>I understand how to get a reference to the highest level container by moving up the container heirarchy but what I am looking for is suggestions for the fastest method to obtain this object reference to the highest level container. It will be called often in the application so I want the fastest technique.

Can you just do it once, and store that highest level container refernce to a well-known location so that you don't need to do it again?
Some people have an application object that is always there (goAPP) on a public variable.
Some people use ADDPROPERTY() to _SCREEN to store well known global references.

We have a goEnvironment object that handles this kind of thing, first time it goes and finds out and after that it uses internal property references.