sort of thing JJ and Hutch might have tried ????
We tried every now and then

Between 16- and 32-bit code, there is a factor 6-8 in terms of speed gain.
Between 32- and 64-bit code, there is a difference around 0-5%, in
both directions. It depends on factors such as cache misses, the length of pointers, etc. Sometimes 64-bit code is faster because modern 64-bit
compilers make more use of SIMD instructions than older (32-bit) ones; which is not true for Assembly: we always used SIMD instructions in 32-bit land.
64-bit code can address more than 2GB, which is occasionally an advantage.
64-bit code has more registers, which is occasionally an advantage (but I very rarely run out of registers in 32-bit code).