Okay. From your post:

$ time wc -l very_huge.file
100000001 very_huge.file

real  0m0.781s
user  0m0.521s
sys   0m0.260s
[download]

So, user code time: 0.521 + system code time: 0.260 = real time: 0.781. Makes sense!

But then:

$ time ./MCE-1.608/examples/wc.pl -l very_huge.file
100000001 very_huge.file

real  0m0.612s
user  0m0.633s
sys   0m1.522s
[download]

User code time: 0.633 + system code time: 1.522 = real time: 2.155s != 0.612s doesn't!

The other examples seem to indicate -- although the "timing information" is equally futzed -- that if you force the real wc to run more slowly, then your fake wc runs less, more slowly?

Is the lesson of your post that if you force wc to count characters -- which you can determine instantly from ls/dir -- and words -- which nobody is ever interested in; whilst also forcing it to use an 'unnatural' collating sequence that is equally of no interest, then your MCE::Grep can do what nobody wants done, less slowly than the system (which?) provided binary does, what nobody wants done?

Great advert.