I've worked with Delphi for many years, and its not far from the speed you can achieve with C++. Delphi is one hell of an underrated language for native programming.
Also, Delphi's standard library, the VCL, is great, and you can learn so much reading the source code, which comes with the IDE. Or does it? Delphi 7 was the last version I used.
Yes, Delphi, the language, which uses a static, strongly typed language, reference counting for memory management, and native ahead-of-time compilation can achieve good performance. That's a shocker. The problem is this isn't what it's intended for, and the standard kit is hardly optimized for it.
And the other point you are trying to make, I still don't get it. You imply that the guy is doing it wrong for using Delphi where speed is important, and you come here and say that Delphi is, indeed, a fast language.
What if speed is not what the language is intended for? If the language is intended for other purpose, and speed comes as a bonus, I don't know how that could be a bad thing.
We started out as a TP shop, so there is code dating back to the 1980s that is still used today (=\)
The rumor is Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero lost the source code to the delphi compiler, which is the reason there had been no additions to the compiler, but who knows if that is legitimate, or should be an entry on snopes
dynamic arrays are reference counted
interfaces are reference counted (mostly for doing com stuff, however I've seen some examples of people trying to use interfaces as a cheap/dirty "i don't have to think about it" memory management tool, badly)
everything else is managed by yours truly
please enlighten us as to what you think Delphi is intended for, and what the standard kit is actually optimised for
Personally, I think Delphi is for cutters.