In my tests, I found it hardly noticeable. It will not improve performance as templates are still evaluated by Vbulletin. It would IMO although help performance if plugins were built around it. You would really not need the plugin system as we know it with this method as you could execute PHP right in the templates (ideally, with includes).
Also, in custom templates, you could in essence eliminate the need for bit templates as Smarty opens up loops which are not available in Vbulletin template conditionals.
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