Director 12 is too slow making clones from 3D models

Question

Why is Director 12 so slow making clones from 3D models? 
It takes 2 minutes to make 1200 clones from 10 very simple 3D models.  And that's only part of the game initialization time. 
The complete game initialization takes 3.5 minutes, including the above 1200 clones, plus other 3D cloning, and other data init.
Users won't wait that long for a game to start.
Please help me out with this.
Here's the Lingo clone initialization code:
<pre>
on initItem nameModel, numModels
  -- every clone has the same shader
  nameShader = "Shader"
  -- init this base model
  -- gObj global points to the source 3d-model cast member
  iModel  = gObj.model(nameModel)
  iShader = gObj.shader(nameShader)
  iModel.transform.rotation = vector(0,0,0)
  iModel.transform.scale    = vector(1,1,1)
  iModel.visibility = #none
  iModel.shaderList[1] = iShader
  iShader.diffuse  = rgb( 0, 0, 0 ) 
  iShader.emissive = rgb( 0, 255, 0 )
  iShader.transparent = FALSE
  iShader.flat = TRUE
  gObj.modelResource(nameModel).lod.bias = 50.0
  -- create a list of clone models -
  if( numModels > 0 ) then
    cloneList = []
    repeat with i = 1 to numModels
      ranStr = getRandomString( nameModel )
      iClone = iModel.clone( ranStr )
      -- add and set available flag to clone
      iClone.userData.addProp( #available, TRUE )
      cloneList.append( iClone )
      -- make clone a child of the rendering group: gGroup
      gGroup.addChild( iClone, #preserveWorld )
    end repeat
    -- add to the model the #clones property and the clone list
    iModel.userData.addProp( #clones, cloneList )
  end if
end initItem
</pre>

Answer 1

@necromanthus,
I use clones for things like non-player-actor models, missiles, and bullets, all of which must be memory-resident in real-time.
When clones are needed, I pull them from the free pool, make them visible, and transform them as required. 
When done with the clones, I make them invisible and return them to the free pool.
In my testing of Director 12, making clones in real-time when they are needed is much too slow for an action game, like a shooter.
The total init time I gave earlier includes many other things besides making clones, but clone making is 40% to 50% of my total init time.
Here's my cloning code after the optimizations -- Note: shader init was removed from initItem(), and the inner loop is now minimal:
on initItem nameModel, numModels
  -- gObj is global pointer to 3D cast member
  -- gGroup is global pointer to rendering group
  iModel = gObj.model(nameModel)
  iModel.transform.rotation = vector(0,0,0)
  iModel.transform.scale    = vector(1,1,1)
  iModel.visibility = #none
  iModel.userData.addProp( #available, TRUE )
  iModel.shaderList[1] = gObj.shader("ModelShader")
  gObj.modelResource(nameModel).lod.auto = TRUE
  gObj.modelResource(nameModel).lod.bias = 10
  gGroup.addChild( iModel, #preserveWorld )
  if( numModels > 0 ) then
    cloneList = []
    repeat with i = 1 to numModels
      iClone = iModel.clone( nameModel & i )
      cloneList.append( iClone )
    end repeat
    iModel.userData.addProp( #clones, cloneList )
  end if
end initItem