I am very sorry to report (at least for me) that as of this moment, item 
9), although not yet complete, is stable and able to pass all the 
existing python regexp tests.  Because these tests are timed, I am using 
the timings from the first suite of tests to perform a benchmark of 
performance between old and new code.  Based on discussion with Andrew 
Kuchling, I have decided for the sake of simplicity, the "timing" of 
each version is to be calculated by the absolute minimum time to execute 
observed because it is believed this execution would have had the most 
continuous CPU cycles and thus most closely represents the true 
execution time.

It is this current conclusion that greatly saddens me, not that the 
effort has not been valuable in understanding the current engine.  
Indeed, I understand the current engine now well enough that I could 
proceed with the other modifications as-is rather than implementing them 
with the new engine.  Mind you, I will likely not bring over the copious  
comments that the new engine received when I translated it to a form 
without C_Macros and gotos, as that would require too much effort IMHO.

Anyway, all that being said, and keeping in mind that I am not 100% 
satisfied with the new engine and may still be able to wring some timing 
out of it -- not that I will spend much more time on this -- here is 
where we currently stand:

Old Engine: 6.574s
New Engine: 7.239s

This makes the old Engine 665ms faster over the entire first test_re.py 
suite, or 9% faster than the New Engine.