> For the case of manipulating bitmaps we can always have a coprocessor
> help out to fix the problem. While it would be great if some hotspot
> could be found and eliminated from Morphic it is far more likely that
> the overhead is distributed all over the place.

That is most likely correct. Have a look at the current Compiler and 
ParseNodes which were written in the ugly old days and notice how they 
painfully avoid sending messages, and how they use pools for stuff 
that's considered really bad style today. What has changed since the old 
days is the general attitude - we happily pay the "price" of the extra 
message if it gives us a bit more flexibility, if it makes the code a 
little more easy to read. This simply didn't used to be the case "back 
then" and MVC is one of the areas that is full of "good old code" - I 
bet you a "modern" MVC would not perform any better or worse than Morphic.

But adding a graphics processor is a good idea and will win you *big* on 
the small machines - most of which are bound by transfer speed over the 
bus anyway so having graphics go fast makes a much bigger difference 
than on the faster machines.

Cheers,
   - Andreas