Seeing poor JSTL performance

[Jim Kennedy]

I've been reading some developers comments that the JSTL does not perform very well.  
I'm am experiencing poor performance that I attribute to the use of the JSTL.  Here is 
something typical I do:



------------------------------------------------------
<form method="post" action="leased/search">
    <input type="hidden" name="<c:out value='${CONTRACT_NUM}' />" value="<c:out 
value='${contract.id}' />" >


    Description: <input type="text" name="<c:out value='${DES}' />" value="<c:out 
value="${search['des_key']}" />" size="20" class="textbox">&nbsp;

    Model Number: <input type="text" name="<c:out value='${MN}' />" value="<c:out 
value="${search['mn_key']}" />" size="20" class="textbox"><BR>

Serial Number: <input type="text" name="<c:out value='${SN}' />" value="<c:out 
value="${search['sn_key']}" />" size="20" class="textbox">&nbsp;

PO Number: <input type="text" name="<c:out value='${PO}' />" value="<c:out 
value="${search['po_key']}" />" size="30" class="textbox"><br>

    Location: <select name="<c:out value='${LOC}' />" class="selectarea">
        <OPTION value="">Select a location</OPTION>
        <c:forEach items="${company_locations}" var="location" >
            <option value="<c:out value='${location.id}'/>" <c:if 
test="${location.id==search['asset_locationcode']}" >SELECTED</c:if> >
            <c:set var="address" value="${location.street1}" />
            <c:out value="${address}, ${location.city} ${location.state}" />
        </option>
        </c:forEach>
</select>&nbsp;

<input type="submit" name="search" value="Search" class="bluebutton">
<input type="submit" name="clear" value="Clear Search" class="bluebutton">
</form>
---------------------------------------------------------------

Is there something I'm doing in the code that I could avoid to enhance the 
performance.  This is only a code fragment. Assume that variables are defined in 
advance.