This has come up while using the jquery.tmpl plugin. With 1.4.2, Webkit has unusable times which can be reduced to the following simple cases.
In this case largeString is a joined array of <ul><li>brief text</li>(..3x li's)</ul> while $('#id') is an empty div.
Case: $('#id').append(largeString)
Safari/Chrome
Array length:1600
Render time:127949
FF3.5
Array length:1600
Render time:2524
Case: $('#id').html(largeString)
Safari/Chrome
Array length:1600
Render time:551
FF3.5
Array length:1600
Render time:1804
I'm having a hard time making sense of these results. The webkit results show almost 3 magnitudes order difference.
Thanks,
Thatcher