Some time ago I implemented pathfinding for monters, which was based on nodes (mapspots). When the level began play, a node graph was built, making reference links between nodes with some extra data like link lengths, minimal height between floor & ceiling etc. When monsters were aware of player presence, they periodically launched path finding procedure to find the fastest way to the player.
In final version algorythm worked very good, but it was terribly slow and used to freeze game for several seconds when there were at least 4-5 active monsters already.
I do not think it was because of some algorythm mistakes, since algorythm itself was rather effective and was supposed to be fast. Thus the only reason I could think of was the overall vavoom progs slowness that was mentioned here once; - the fact that VavoomC is an interpreted language.
I believe Vavoom became faster since and I am going to check my pathfinding once more, but, theoretically, wouldn't it be possible (and, what is more important - acceptable) to implement such procedure on native level, I mean in Vavoom engine itself?