On Wednesday, 31 July 2013 at 18:44:14 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> Another possibility is to copy the xml.d, remove the module std.xml; declartion from it, change import std.xml; to import xml; then compile with dmd and ldc. This will account for differences in compiler flags used to compile phobos in dmd and ldc projects.

Did just this. The result is that both versions perform worse.

--- Repeat x1 ---
dmd -release -noboundscheck -O -inline
Average time: 80 msecs

lcd2
Average time: 2 msecs

--- Repeat x100 ---
dmd -release -noboundscheck -O -inline
Average time: 78.84 msecs

ldc2
Average time: 0.08 msecs

asm of dmd = 48,620 lines
asm of lcd2 = 15,524 lines

I can send the code to anyone who would like to test it.