Here is an interesting blog post that I came across:
http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/faster-than-innerhtml
The synopsis basically is that one can gain dramatic speed improvements
on setting innerHTML when removing items that are going to be
overwritten using DOM methods before inserting stuff via innerHTML.
I could see how this would be a need addition to jQuery.
-- Felix
PS: If you like regex make sure to subscribe to this guys blog, he has
some mad skills going on.
--------------------------
My Blog: http://www.thinkingphp.org
My Business: http://www.fg-webdesign.de