Just wanted to add that, per some timings I just re-ran, new Element() is still more than 3x faster than Element.clone().
Which means, from a performance standpoint, that if you initially
build an element from a known template of {} options and are just
trying to get more of the same, it is far better to rebuild from the
template than to clone.
This does not address convenience factors or other needs that make
cloning more suitable... just something else to think about.
-- S.
