Quote: the velocities differ for different heights owing to gravitiation acceleration
This should obviously not be. I too have had problems with an inconstant gravity, but haven't had to time to track it down. In my case, my falling velocity rate was constant and then strated fluctuating as I got closer to the ground. Naturally, gravity should remain constant at thus I should gain a constant amount of Velocity each second. What I observed is that the rate DECREASED as I got closer to the ground. Again, haven't had time to fully investigate this, but as I recall, I had no code except PE in my drop and thus to me this was a PE problem.
Quote: the phent_getvelocity fucntion for every frame brings down the frame rate by upto 15 % max
I've had up 100 entities all registered with the PE and all geting velocity and I noticed no major frame drop (stayed at 58-60 the whole time).