I understand what you are trying to say. BUT i can’t agree on some points and a liite bit confused of how/ why are you demonstrating such stuff … so prob., the questions I would ask here:

Why are you creating a new StringBuffer each time?
Without running this test, I can assume taht will be slow down the process, if you re-locate thet one in front of loop OR insert a real new String() on each place where you work with strings, that might be closer to a real compare.

Even if they are internal compiler, whci is right an very important, we might provide at least similar stuff; for instance:

String expression = new String();
expression = “bla”;
expression = “bla ba”;

OR choose the same logic on StringBuffe side:

String expression = new StringBuffer( “bla”.length*3 );
expression.append(“bla”).append(bla”).append(bla”);

Well … however, I won’t use Strings anyway if I can avoid it ;)
If you think that’s better, of course that will be fine.

Cheers!