Faster JSON Decoder - NOT :-(

I'm looking for a fast JSON decoder in AS3, and I'm really hoping that the next Flash player will have native JSON functions like IE8. The as3 core library has a decoder. Tested it on a one megabyte JSON String and it took almost 4 seconds to decode on my MacBook Pro. Wow ! There has to be a better way. Couple of former life ago, was really into lex/yacc and flex/bison. BTW - I laughed so hard when I read the name of the first link when I googled 'lex yacc' - The generated "C" code was very fast. So one of the "modern" way to write a lexical analyzer/parser is to use ANTLR. ANTLR has an option to target ActionScript. I Found a JSON grammar reference and made simple adjustments for AS3. Ran the ANTLR Tool on the 'g' files and compiled the generated AS files into a test harness. BTW - Had to adjust by hand the generated AS3 code, as it did not compile out-of-the-box :-( I passed a set of test cases for the exception of escaped string content. Now, back to the one megabyte JSON String. It took almost 29 seconds !!!! Wow ! Thinking about it some more. It kinda make sense, as I'm evaluating the string from a generated AST. Anyway, I believe you should "publish" your successes and failures. Like usual, here is the source code.