Sorry for stepping in so late, and apologies if my questions have already been answered in the thread; I've quickly gone through all of it so I might have overlooked something.
1) when you say 2.3 vs. 2.4, is this something 2.4 had from the beginning, or did it happen with a specific version?
2) I recall Howard mentioned the opportunity of profiling 2.4 (or both) to track where the slowdown occurred. Are you working at that?
p.