Now Java SE 6 has escape analysis !
Java 6u11 -server -XX:+AggressiveOpts:
Testing 1.0E7 allocation of an Object : 208 ms.
Testing 1.0E7 Local objects allocation (method scope) : 313 ms.
Testing 1.0E7 allocation of object in a loop : 433 ms.
Java 6u14 -server -XX:+AggressiveOpts:
Testing 1.0E7 allocation of an Object : 61 ms.
Testing 1.0E7 Local objects allocation (method scope) : 94 ms.
Testing 1.0E7 allocation of object in a loop : 79 ms.
You can download it from
http://download.java.net/jdk6/binaries.
Regards
Angelo