OKay, I can see what is driving your requirements. One possibility that might prove a little quicker is Alternative-capture-group-numbering*, which allows you to re-use capture numbering within different match alternatives.

The example given at the reference above is very pertinent to your use. It might at least be worth benchmarking.

*Unfortunately #anchors no longer seem to work at perldoc since they added that annoying moving menu :(

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In reply to Re^5: Speeding up named capture buffer access by BrowserUk
in thread Speeding up named capture buffer access by SBECK

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