I\'m using quite much STL in performance critical C++ code under windows. One possible \"cheap\" way to get some extra performance would be to change to a faster STL library.
I haven't tried it, but as far as I know, there have been no major changes to Microsoft's STL implementation. (There are no huge new optimizations in VS2008 compiler over 2005 either) So if STLPort was faster then, it's probably still the case.
But that's just speculation. :) Be sure to report back on the results if you try it out.