[jQuery] Lower speed with 1.3.1 vs 1.2.6 with simple parsing

[Sjoland]

Hi!,

When switching between 1.3.1 and 1.2.6 i get a serious drop in speed
when collection a JSON object from static HTML content.

1.2.6
FF: 325ms
Safari: 75ms
IE7: 450ms

1.3.1
FF: 1205ms
Safari: 415ms
IE7: 1550 ms

The javascript collects data into a JSON object with a few methods
like this:

// MAIN
function getMenuItems(menu) {
        var menuItems = [];
        $(menu).find('.MenuItem').each(function(){
                var item = false;
                if ($(this).hasClass('processMenuItem')) item = 
getProcessMenuItem($
(this)[0]);
                if ($(this).hasClass('softwareMenuItem')) item = 
getSoftwareMenuItem
($(this)[0]);
                if ($(this).hasClass('listMenuItem')) item = 
getListMenuItem($(this)
[0]);
                if ($(this).hasClass('aboutMenuItem')) item = getAboutMenuItem($
(this)[0]);
                menuItems.push(item);
        });
        return menuItems;
};

// COLLECTOR
function getProcessMenuItem(li) {
        var type = "processMenuItem";
        var item = {
                "id" : $(li).attr('id'),
                "type" : type,
                "title" : $(li).find('a:first').text(),
                "URI": $(li).find('a:first').attr('href'),
                "preamble" : $(li).find('li.Intro h4').text(),
                "body" : $(li).find('li.Intro p').text(),
                "news" : {
                        "title" : $(li).find('li.News a').text(),
                        "URI" : $(li).find('li.News a').attr('href'),
                        "summary" : $(li).find('li.News a').attr('title')
                },
                "splash" : {
                        "title" : $(li).find('li.Splash a').text(),
                        "URI" : $(li).find('li.Splash a').attr('href'),
                        "summary" : $(li).find('li.Splash a').attr('title'),
                        "media" : $(li).find('li.Splash img').attr('src')
                },
                "links" :  getAnchorLinks(li)
        };
        return item;
};


Anyone else experiencing drops in speed with 1.3.1 doing simple stuff
like this?
Sure, I was not expecting any major speed increase since the code is
not optimized yet, but an 80% drop is just crazy...

Please advice,
/Johan