Nevermind...

turns out this "bug" was fixed a long time ago. Even in RB2007...

(I'm talking about the bug where "if e <> nil then" would fail with a
nilobjectexception if e was nil and operator_compare was defined.)

So... after I found that out, I was able to fix my code. It's now
faster. And my "ElfData Unit Test" project runs without modification.
Meaning everyone's code should just keep working, no need to modify
your code :)

Even better... it makes a bit more sense than it used to, there was
stuff I didn't test for in my "ElfData Unit Test", because I treated
it like "garbage in, garbage out"... Such as doing this: "if
ElfData.Equals( nil ) then"

Now... I've given it a good definition. "Valid objects are always
greater than nil, even if their string length is zero."

This just works.

A pleasing end to a day...