Well, Inline is nice (Ingy++ for that one), but it requires the extra overhead when compiling/linking. It seemed a bit silly to me of using Inline::C to eventually generate stuff XS does itself. IIRC I benchmarked it somehow and it appeared that pure XS was still faster than Inline (which kinda makes sense). Inline::C was a bit confusing at the time but the ppl on the mailing list were extremly helpfull :) Guess I just like it
... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur.