in reply to Substitution unexpectedly very slow, in Strawberry

Just a comparison. $^O eq 'linux': 
0.254748821258545
0.255423069000244
v5.26.1

0.514794111251831
0.481626033782959
v5.37.3

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map{substr$_->[0],$_->[1]||0,1}[\*||{},3],[[]],[ref qr-1,-,-1],[{}],[sub{}^*ARGV,3]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom