The gain is: /.../
Yes, I can also reason theoretically what the gain is. What I meant was to actually _measure_ it. Is it 0.1% speed/memory gain? 1%? 10%? I'm not saying that you haven't done so, but if you have you should be able to give a fairly exact figure. If it's only 1% or thereabouts you'll probably get more "bang for the buck" by attacking something else. Maybe the query formatter; it copies and quotes the whole strings too afterall, unless SQLite support bindings (does it?).
If flag (method) is OK, then it is OK for me /.../
How do you intend to implement the flag in that case?