alain said:
>   Did I win?

yes, you certainly did!

source code is smaller, not by much, certainly, but smaller.  
(by 67 bytes, 496 v. 563, over a 10% savings!)

compiled app is smaller, not by much, certainly, but smaller.  
(by 44 bytes, 45,814 v. 45,858, more like a .1% savings...)

speed is better, not by much, certainly, but better,
40 seconds v. 44 on my mac (an 11% savings!)
or roughly 10 seconds v. 11 on a 
moore-state-of-today machine...

not that noticeable on the 4-meg bible file, perhaps --
(where did those 5 seconds go, does anyone know?
time positively _flies_ when you're lower-casing!) -- 
but it would add up to 100 seconds (nearly two full minutes!)
if we ever needed to lower-case a 800-megger...  (yeah, right..)

but anyway, by all the important benchmarks, 
your source code is the new criterion, alain!
congratulations!  you win the _real_ february challenge!
now, who can build a better lower-case mouse-trap than alain?

or perhaps we could fast-forward to the march challenge...

-bowerbird