Hmmm .. Lex, are you aware of Ensemble?

Mark Hayden basically proved that if you properly manage memory and a
few other things, well, you can be faster than C, unless the C program
is (ahem) trivial.

some more details: Mark showed that for a rather complicated network
protocol stack, a CAML implementation was a *lot* faster than a
highly-optimized C implementation.

The key things he was able to do were:

  (a) since its in ML, you can be a lot more aggressive about
  optimization

  (b) effective memory-management of buffers in ML -- don't just leave
  it to the GC

  (c) serious reliance on the inliner

There were a few other things, but this is a good start.

Cheers,
--chet--

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