Just some quickie ideas that might speed up the calcs

1) The ground objects (sets of points all with same orientation, with lines
drawn from a common set of points) were much faster than normal object
calcs. 

2) all normal objects are symmetrical around at least one plane. Thus 
nine mults for the first point, then THREE more for the second. This
may speed up normal objects by a third. More planes of symmetry mean
more savings. E. G. for a simple plane body and wings, old is 
(9+9+9+9)=36 mults. 2-plane symmetry is (9+3+3+3)=18 mults ==>twice speed.

3) Historically, in Star Wars we ran out of room for the vectors at the same
time as blinking started and excessive calcs(assuming all ground objects).
Remember that our ground objects were excessively simple. 

You are right that the calcs are the slowest. Vector is slow(blinking) only
during alphanumerics and banners (large pre-stored pictures).

4) if vector was faster(and this includes converting points to relative 
vector) then each ship could be done not only in brite outline, but also
with internal trusses, brite trusses near player, dim trusses away from
player. This would give the whole outline, with obvious direction cues.

	
g
 r