IMHO, nothing makes parsing as easy as snobol/spitbol. It is almost as old as lisp, and older than C.

The question I have as a mere mortal user, who is not interested very much in theory and debates thereon, is what has the fastest performance?

If the proponents of post-snobol PEG/packrat were to publish a "parsing challenge" and let us replicate/create benchmarks of different parsers, including some written in snobol, I would find that very useful in determining whether these other parsers are worth a more serious look.