diff --git a/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm b/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
index 675f42b0..f8123b94 100644
--- a/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
+++ b/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
@@ -1967,7 +1967,8 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         if {[tcl::string::last \n $text] >= 0} {
             error "string_width accepts only a single line"
         }
-        tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        #tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        ansifreestring_width $text
     }
 
     #todo - consider disallowing/erroring out when \r \n in string?
@@ -1988,10 +1989,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach c $codes {
-                if {$c <= 255 && !($c < 31 || $c == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$c <= 255} {
+                    if {$c == 9 || ($c >= 31 && $c != 127)} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$c < 917504 || $c > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $c]
@@ -2069,7 +2072,15 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
     }
     proc wcswidth_single {char} {
         scan $char %c dec
-        if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+        if {$dec <= 255} {
+            if {$dec == 9} {
+                #tab always represented by at least one char in terminal etc.
+                #caller will need to process tabs themselves to determine extra width applicable to their circumstance.
+                return 1
+            }
+            if {($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+                return 0
+            }
             #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
             #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
             return 1
@@ -2084,10 +2095,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         set width 0
         foreach c [split $string {}] {
             scan $c %c dec
-            if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                incr width
+            if {$dec <= 255} {
+                if {$dec == 9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127)} {
+                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                    incr width
+                }
             } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                 #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                 set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec] ;#takes decimal codepoint
@@ -2118,10 +2131,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach dec $codes {
-                if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$dec <= 255} {
+                    if {($dec ==9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127))} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcswidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec]
@@ -2152,7 +2167,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
                     #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
                     #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
                     if {!($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    incr width
+                        incr width
                     }
                 } else {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
@@ -2235,8 +2250,9 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #we should only map control sequences to nothing after processing ones with length effects, such as \b (\x07f) or DEL \x1f
         #todo - document that these shouldn't be present in input rather than explicitly checking here
 
-        #c0 controls
-        set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        #c0 controls + del (127 7f) - tab
+        #set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        set re_ascii_c0 {[\u0000-\u0008\u000A-\u001F\u007F]}
         set text [regsub -all $re_ascii_c0 $text ""]
 
         #c1 controls - first section of the Latin-1 Supplement block - all non-printable from a utf-8 perspective
@@ -2252,8 +2268,10 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #    return [tcl::string::length $text]
         #}
         if {![regexp "\[\uFF-\U10FFFF\]" $text]} {
-            #return [tcl::string::length $text]
-            return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
+            return [tcl::string::length $text]
+            #punk::char::wcswidth has to split and examine dec value of each code
+            #By stripping controls + 7F (leaving tab) we've already eliminated the non-printable ascii - REVIEW
+            #return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
         }
 
         #split just to get the standalone character widths - and then scan for other combiners (?) - or scan for clusters first?
diff --git a/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm b/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
index c102ca29..4a7e3c32 100644
--- a/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
+++ b/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
@@ -7725,6 +7725,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
     set RST         [a]
 
     proc frame_samples {} {
+        #@ for example 50us per frame and 16 frames - we are already at 800us
+        #As this can be triggered in @dynamic punk::args parsing for textblock::frame - even that can add up.
+        #textblock::frame shouldn't use punk::args parsing on the happy path - so this isn't an issue if -checkargs 0 supplied in that call
+        #frame_samples might be a candidate for memoization/caching - but we need to leave open the possibility of
+        #adding/loading or even editing frametypes in a running system and having that reflected in the textblock::frame argument usage display.
+
         set FRAMETYPELABELS [dict create]
         if {[info commands ::textblock::frame] ne ""} {
             foreach ft [frametypes] {
@@ -7756,7 +7762,11 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         -checkargs      -default 1 -type boolean\
             -help "If true do extra argument checks and
             provide more comprehensive error info.
-            Set false for slight performance improvement."
+            As the argument parser loads around 16 default frame
+            samples dynamically, this can add add up as each may
+            take 10s of microseconds. For many-framed tables
+            and other applications this can add up.
+            Set false for performance improvement."
         -etabs          -default 0\
             -help "expanding tabs - experimental/unimplemented."
         -type           -default light -choices {${[textblock::frametypes]}} -choicerestricted 0 -choicecolumns 8 -type dict\
@@ -7876,10 +7886,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #use -buildcache 1 with -usecache 0 for debugging cache issues so we can inspect using textblock::frame_cache
         set optnames [tcl::dict::keys $opts]
         set opts_ok 1 ;#default assumption
+        #NOTE: mis-spelling options in this list can trigger $opt_ok false
+        #and fallback to using punk::args to parse unnecessarily. - performance can degrate noticeably on tables
         foreach {k v} $optlist {
             set k2 [tcl::prefix::match -error "" $optnames $k]
             switch -- $k2 {
-                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -join
+                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -joins
                 - -title - -titlealign - -subtitle - -subtitlealign - -width - -height
                 - -ansiborder - -ansibase
                 - -blockalign - -textalign - -ellipsis
@@ -7900,6 +7912,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #only use punk::args if check_args is true or our basic checks failed
         #never need to checkargs if only one argument supplied even if it looks like an option - as it will be treated as data to frame
         if {[llength $args] != 1 && (!$opts_ok || $check_args)} {
+            #as frame is called a lot within table building - checking args can have a *big* impact on final performance.
             set argd [punk::args::get_by_id ::textblock::frame $args]
             set opts [dict get $argd opts]
             set contents [dict get $argd values contents]
diff --git a/src/modules/punk/char-999999.0a1.0.tm b/src/modules/punk/char-999999.0a1.0.tm
index 197a30a9..a021bf42 100644
--- a/src/modules/punk/char-999999.0a1.0.tm
+++ b/src/modules/punk/char-999999.0a1.0.tm
@@ -1967,7 +1967,8 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         if {[tcl::string::last \n $text] >= 0} {
             error "string_width accepts only a single line"
         }
-        tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        #tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        ansifreestring_width $text
     }
 
     #todo - consider disallowing/erroring out when \r \n in string?
@@ -1988,10 +1989,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach c $codes {
-                if {$c <= 255 && !($c < 31 || $c == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$c <= 255} {
+                    if {$c == 9 || ($c >= 31 && $c != 127)} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$c < 917504 || $c > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $c]
@@ -2069,7 +2072,15 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
     }
     proc wcswidth_single {char} {
         scan $char %c dec
-        if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+        if {$dec <= 255} {
+            if {$dec == 9} {
+                #tab always represented by at least one char in terminal etc.
+                #caller will need to process tabs themselves to determine extra width applicable to their circumstance.
+                return 1
+            }
+            if {($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+                return 0
+            }
             #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
             #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
             return 1
@@ -2084,10 +2095,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         set width 0
         foreach c [split $string {}] {
             scan $c %c dec
-            if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                incr width
+            if {$dec <= 255} {
+                if {$dec == 9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127)} {
+                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                    incr width
+                }
             } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                 #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                 set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec] ;#takes decimal codepoint
@@ -2118,10 +2131,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach dec $codes {
-                if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$dec <= 255} {
+                    if {($dec ==9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127))} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcswidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec]
@@ -2152,7 +2167,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
                     #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
                     #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
                     if {!($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    incr width
+                        incr width
                     }
                 } else {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
@@ -2235,8 +2250,9 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #we should only map control sequences to nothing after processing ones with length effects, such as \b (\x07f) or DEL \x1f
         #todo - document that these shouldn't be present in input rather than explicitly checking here
 
-        #c0 controls
-        set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        #c0 controls + del (127 7f) - tab
+        #set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        set re_ascii_c0 {[\u0000-\u0008\u000A-\u001F\u007F]}
         set text [regsub -all $re_ascii_c0 $text ""]
 
         #c1 controls - first section of the Latin-1 Supplement block - all non-printable from a utf-8 perspective
@@ -2252,8 +2268,10 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #    return [tcl::string::length $text]
         #}
         if {![regexp "\[\uFF-\U10FFFF\]" $text]} {
-            #return [tcl::string::length $text]
-            return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
+            return [tcl::string::length $text]
+            #punk::char::wcswidth has to split and examine dec value of each code
+            #By stripping controls + 7F (leaving tab) we've already eliminated the non-printable ascii - REVIEW
+            #return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
         }
 
         #split just to get the standalone character widths - and then scan for other combiners (?) - or scan for clusters first?
diff --git a/src/modules/textblock-999999.0a1.0.tm b/src/modules/textblock-999999.0a1.0.tm
index cc3d24c6..971d7331 100644
--- a/src/modules/textblock-999999.0a1.0.tm
+++ b/src/modules/textblock-999999.0a1.0.tm
@@ -7725,6 +7725,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
     set RST         [a]
 
     proc frame_samples {} {
+        #@ for example 50us per frame and 16 frames - we are already at 800us
+        #As this can be triggered in @dynamic punk::args parsing for textblock::frame - even that can add up.
+        #textblock::frame shouldn't use punk::args parsing on the happy path - so this isn't an issue if -checkargs 0 supplied in that call
+        #frame_samples might be a candidate for memoization/caching - but we need to leave open the possibility of
+        #adding/loading or even editing frametypes in a running system and having that reflected in the textblock::frame argument usage display.
+
         set FRAMETYPELABELS [dict create]
         if {[info commands ::textblock::frame] ne ""} {
             foreach ft [frametypes] {
@@ -7756,7 +7762,11 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         -checkargs      -default 1 -type boolean\
             -help "If true do extra argument checks and
             provide more comprehensive error info.
-            Set false for slight performance improvement."
+            As the argument parser loads around 16 default frame
+            samples dynamically, this can add add up as each may
+            take 10s of microseconds. For many-framed tables
+            and other applications this can add up.
+            Set false for performance improvement."
         -etabs          -default 0\
             -help "expanding tabs - experimental/unimplemented."
         -type           -default light -choices {${[textblock::frametypes]}} -choicerestricted 0 -choicecolumns 8 -type dict\
@@ -7876,10 +7886,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #use -buildcache 1 with -usecache 0 for debugging cache issues so we can inspect using textblock::frame_cache
         set optnames [tcl::dict::keys $opts]
         set opts_ok 1 ;#default assumption
+        #NOTE: mis-spelling options in this list can trigger $opt_ok false
+        #and fallback to using punk::args to parse unnecessarily. - performance can degrate noticeably on tables
         foreach {k v} $optlist {
             set k2 [tcl::prefix::match -error "" $optnames $k]
             switch -- $k2 {
-                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -join
+                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -joins
                 - -title - -titlealign - -subtitle - -subtitlealign - -width - -height
                 - -ansiborder - -ansibase
                 - -blockalign - -textalign - -ellipsis
@@ -7900,6 +7912,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #only use punk::args if check_args is true or our basic checks failed
         #never need to checkargs if only one argument supplied even if it looks like an option - as it will be treated as data to frame
         if {[llength $args] != 1 && (!$opts_ok || $check_args)} {
+            #as frame is called a lot within table building - checking args can have a *big* impact on final performance.
             set argd [punk::args::get_by_id ::textblock::frame $args]
             set opts [dict get $argd opts]
             set contents [dict get $argd values contents]
diff --git a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
index 675f42b0..f8123b94 100644
--- a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
+++ b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
@@ -1967,7 +1967,8 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         if {[tcl::string::last \n $text] >= 0} {
             error "string_width accepts only a single line"
         }
-        tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        #tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        ansifreestring_width $text
     }
 
     #todo - consider disallowing/erroring out when \r \n in string?
@@ -1988,10 +1989,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach c $codes {
-                if {$c <= 255 && !($c < 31 || $c == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$c <= 255} {
+                    if {$c == 9 || ($c >= 31 && $c != 127)} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$c < 917504 || $c > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $c]
@@ -2069,7 +2072,15 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
     }
     proc wcswidth_single {char} {
         scan $char %c dec
-        if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+        if {$dec <= 255} {
+            if {$dec == 9} {
+                #tab always represented by at least one char in terminal etc.
+                #caller will need to process tabs themselves to determine extra width applicable to their circumstance.
+                return 1
+            }
+            if {($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+                return 0
+            }
             #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
             #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
             return 1
@@ -2084,10 +2095,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         set width 0
         foreach c [split $string {}] {
             scan $c %c dec
-            if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                incr width
+            if {$dec <= 255} {
+                if {$dec == 9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127)} {
+                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                    incr width
+                }
             } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                 #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                 set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec] ;#takes decimal codepoint
@@ -2118,10 +2131,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach dec $codes {
-                if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$dec <= 255} {
+                    if {($dec ==9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127))} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcswidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec]
@@ -2152,7 +2167,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
                     #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
                     #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
                     if {!($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    incr width
+                        incr width
                     }
                 } else {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
@@ -2235,8 +2250,9 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #we should only map control sequences to nothing after processing ones with length effects, such as \b (\x07f) or DEL \x1f
         #todo - document that these shouldn't be present in input rather than explicitly checking here
 
-        #c0 controls
-        set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        #c0 controls + del (127 7f) - tab
+        #set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        set re_ascii_c0 {[\u0000-\u0008\u000A-\u001F\u007F]}
         set text [regsub -all $re_ascii_c0 $text ""]
 
         #c1 controls - first section of the Latin-1 Supplement block - all non-printable from a utf-8 perspective
@@ -2252,8 +2268,10 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #    return [tcl::string::length $text]
         #}
         if {![regexp "\[\uFF-\U10FFFF\]" $text]} {
-            #return [tcl::string::length $text]
-            return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
+            return [tcl::string::length $text]
+            #punk::char::wcswidth has to split and examine dec value of each code
+            #By stripping controls + 7F (leaving tab) we've already eliminated the non-printable ascii - REVIEW
+            #return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
         }
 
         #split just to get the standalone character widths - and then scan for other combiners (?) - or scan for clusters first?
diff --git a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
index c102ca29..4a7e3c32 100644
--- a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
+++ b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.project-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
@@ -7725,6 +7725,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
     set RST         [a]
 
     proc frame_samples {} {
+        #@ for example 50us per frame and 16 frames - we are already at 800us
+        #As this can be triggered in @dynamic punk::args parsing for textblock::frame - even that can add up.
+        #textblock::frame shouldn't use punk::args parsing on the happy path - so this isn't an issue if -checkargs 0 supplied in that call
+        #frame_samples might be a candidate for memoization/caching - but we need to leave open the possibility of
+        #adding/loading or even editing frametypes in a running system and having that reflected in the textblock::frame argument usage display.
+
         set FRAMETYPELABELS [dict create]
         if {[info commands ::textblock::frame] ne ""} {
             foreach ft [frametypes] {
@@ -7756,7 +7762,11 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         -checkargs      -default 1 -type boolean\
             -help "If true do extra argument checks and
             provide more comprehensive error info.
-            Set false for slight performance improvement."
+            As the argument parser loads around 16 default frame
+            samples dynamically, this can add add up as each may
+            take 10s of microseconds. For many-framed tables
+            and other applications this can add up.
+            Set false for performance improvement."
         -etabs          -default 0\
             -help "expanding tabs - experimental/unimplemented."
         -type           -default light -choices {${[textblock::frametypes]}} -choicerestricted 0 -choicecolumns 8 -type dict\
@@ -7876,10 +7886,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #use -buildcache 1 with -usecache 0 for debugging cache issues so we can inspect using textblock::frame_cache
         set optnames [tcl::dict::keys $opts]
         set opts_ok 1 ;#default assumption
+        #NOTE: mis-spelling options in this list can trigger $opt_ok false
+        #and fallback to using punk::args to parse unnecessarily. - performance can degrate noticeably on tables
         foreach {k v} $optlist {
             set k2 [tcl::prefix::match -error "" $optnames $k]
             switch -- $k2 {
-                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -join
+                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -joins
                 - -title - -titlealign - -subtitle - -subtitlealign - -width - -height
                 - -ansiborder - -ansibase
                 - -blockalign - -textalign - -ellipsis
@@ -7900,6 +7912,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #only use punk::args if check_args is true or our basic checks failed
         #never need to checkargs if only one argument supplied even if it looks like an option - as it will be treated as data to frame
         if {[llength $args] != 1 && (!$opts_ok || $check_args)} {
+            #as frame is called a lot within table building - checking args can have a *big* impact on final performance.
             set argd [punk::args::get_by_id ::textblock::frame $args]
             set opts [dict get $argd opts]
             set contents [dict get $argd values contents]
diff --git a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
index 675f42b0..f8123b94 100644
--- a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
+++ b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
@@ -1967,7 +1967,8 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         if {[tcl::string::last \n $text] >= 0} {
             error "string_width accepts only a single line"
         }
-        tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        #tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        ansifreestring_width $text
     }
 
     #todo - consider disallowing/erroring out when \r \n in string?
@@ -1988,10 +1989,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach c $codes {
-                if {$c <= 255 && !($c < 31 || $c == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$c <= 255} {
+                    if {$c == 9 || ($c >= 31 && $c != 127)} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$c < 917504 || $c > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $c]
@@ -2069,7 +2072,15 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
     }
     proc wcswidth_single {char} {
         scan $char %c dec
-        if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+        if {$dec <= 255} {
+            if {$dec == 9} {
+                #tab always represented by at least one char in terminal etc.
+                #caller will need to process tabs themselves to determine extra width applicable to their circumstance.
+                return 1
+            }
+            if {($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+                return 0
+            }
             #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
             #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
             return 1
@@ -2084,10 +2095,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         set width 0
         foreach c [split $string {}] {
             scan $c %c dec
-            if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                incr width
+            if {$dec <= 255} {
+                if {$dec == 9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127)} {
+                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                    incr width
+                }
             } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                 #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                 set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec] ;#takes decimal codepoint
@@ -2118,10 +2131,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach dec $codes {
-                if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$dec <= 255} {
+                    if {($dec ==9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127))} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcswidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec]
@@ -2152,7 +2167,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
                     #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
                     #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
                     if {!($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    incr width
+                        incr width
                     }
                 } else {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
@@ -2235,8 +2250,9 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #we should only map control sequences to nothing after processing ones with length effects, such as \b (\x07f) or DEL \x1f
         #todo - document that these shouldn't be present in input rather than explicitly checking here
 
-        #c0 controls
-        set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        #c0 controls + del (127 7f) - tab
+        #set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        set re_ascii_c0 {[\u0000-\u0008\u000A-\u001F\u007F]}
         set text [regsub -all $re_ascii_c0 $text ""]
 
         #c1 controls - first section of the Latin-1 Supplement block - all non-printable from a utf-8 perspective
@@ -2252,8 +2268,10 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #    return [tcl::string::length $text]
         #}
         if {![regexp "\[\uFF-\U10FFFF\]" $text]} {
-            #return [tcl::string::length $text]
-            return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
+            return [tcl::string::length $text]
+            #punk::char::wcswidth has to split and examine dec value of each code
+            #By stripping controls + 7F (leaving tab) we've already eliminated the non-printable ascii - REVIEW
+            #return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
         }
 
         #split just to get the standalone character widths - and then scan for other combiners (?) - or scan for clusters first?
diff --git a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
index c102ca29..4a7e3c32 100644
--- a/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
+++ b/src/project_layouts/custom/_project/punk.shell-0.1/src/bootsupport/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
@@ -7725,6 +7725,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
     set RST         [a]
 
     proc frame_samples {} {
+        #@ for example 50us per frame and 16 frames - we are already at 800us
+        #As this can be triggered in @dynamic punk::args parsing for textblock::frame - even that can add up.
+        #textblock::frame shouldn't use punk::args parsing on the happy path - so this isn't an issue if -checkargs 0 supplied in that call
+        #frame_samples might be a candidate for memoization/caching - but we need to leave open the possibility of
+        #adding/loading or even editing frametypes in a running system and having that reflected in the textblock::frame argument usage display.
+
         set FRAMETYPELABELS [dict create]
         if {[info commands ::textblock::frame] ne ""} {
             foreach ft [frametypes] {
@@ -7756,7 +7762,11 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         -checkargs      -default 1 -type boolean\
             -help "If true do extra argument checks and
             provide more comprehensive error info.
-            Set false for slight performance improvement."
+            As the argument parser loads around 16 default frame
+            samples dynamically, this can add add up as each may
+            take 10s of microseconds. For many-framed tables
+            and other applications this can add up.
+            Set false for performance improvement."
         -etabs          -default 0\
             -help "expanding tabs - experimental/unimplemented."
         -type           -default light -choices {${[textblock::frametypes]}} -choicerestricted 0 -choicecolumns 8 -type dict\
@@ -7876,10 +7886,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #use -buildcache 1 with -usecache 0 for debugging cache issues so we can inspect using textblock::frame_cache
         set optnames [tcl::dict::keys $opts]
         set opts_ok 1 ;#default assumption
+        #NOTE: mis-spelling options in this list can trigger $opt_ok false
+        #and fallback to using punk::args to parse unnecessarily. - performance can degrate noticeably on tables
         foreach {k v} $optlist {
             set k2 [tcl::prefix::match -error "" $optnames $k]
             switch -- $k2 {
-                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -join
+                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -joins
                 - -title - -titlealign - -subtitle - -subtitlealign - -width - -height
                 - -ansiborder - -ansibase
                 - -blockalign - -textalign - -ellipsis
@@ -7900,6 +7912,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #only use punk::args if check_args is true or our basic checks failed
         #never need to checkargs if only one argument supplied even if it looks like an option - as it will be treated as data to frame
         if {[llength $args] != 1 && (!$opts_ok || $check_args)} {
+            #as frame is called a lot within table building - checking args can have a *big* impact on final performance.
             set argd [punk::args::get_by_id ::textblock::frame $args]
             set opts [dict get $argd opts]
             set contents [dict get $argd values contents]
diff --git a/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm b/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
index 675f42b0..f8123b94 100644
--- a/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
+++ b/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/punk/char-0.1.0.tm
@@ -1967,7 +1967,8 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         if {[tcl::string::last \n $text] >= 0} {
             error "string_width accepts only a single line"
         }
-        tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        #tailcall ansifreestring_width $text
+        ansifreestring_width $text
     }
 
     #todo - consider disallowing/erroring out when \r \n in string?
@@ -1988,10 +1989,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach c $codes {
-                if {$c <= 255 && !($c < 31 || $c == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$c <= 255} {
+                    if {$c == 9 || ($c >= 31 && $c != 127)} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$c < 917504 || $c > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $c]
@@ -2069,7 +2072,15 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
     }
     proc wcswidth_single {char} {
         scan $char %c dec
-        if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+        if {$dec <= 255} {
+            if {$dec == 9} {
+                #tab always represented by at least one char in terminal etc.
+                #caller will need to process tabs themselves to determine extra width applicable to their circumstance.
+                return 1
+            }
+            if {($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
+                return 0
+            }
             #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
             #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
             return 1
@@ -2084,10 +2095,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         set width 0
         foreach c [split $string {}] {
             scan $c %c dec
-            if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                incr width
+            if {$dec <= 255} {
+                if {$dec == 9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127)} {
+                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
+                    incr width
+                }
             } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                 #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                 set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec] ;#takes decimal codepoint
@@ -2118,10 +2131,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
 
             set codes [scan $chunk [tcl::string::repeat %c [tcl::string::length $chunk]]]
             foreach dec $codes {
-                if {$dec <= 255 && !($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
-                    #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
-                    incr width
+                if {$dec <= 255} {
+                    if {($dec ==9 || ($dec >= 31 && $dec != 127))} {
+                        #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
+                        #todo - compare with python or other lang wcswidth
+                        incr width
+                    }
                 } elseif {$dec < 917504 || $dec > 917631} {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
                     set w [textutil::wcswidth_char $dec]
@@ -2152,7 +2167,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
                     #review - non-printing ascii? why does textutil::wcswidth report 1 ??
                     #todo - compare with python or other lang wcwidth
                     if {!($dec < 31 || $dec == 127)} {
-                    incr width
+                        incr width
                     }
                 } else {
                     #TODO - various other joiners and non-printing chars
@@ -2235,8 +2250,9 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #we should only map control sequences to nothing after processing ones with length effects, such as \b (\x07f) or DEL \x1f
         #todo - document that these shouldn't be present in input rather than explicitly checking here
 
-        #c0 controls
-        set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        #c0 controls + del (127 7f) - tab
+        #set re_ascii_c0 {[\U0000-\U001F]}
+        set re_ascii_c0 {[\u0000-\u0008\u000A-\u001F\u007F]}
         set text [regsub -all $re_ascii_c0 $text ""]
 
         #c1 controls - first section of the Latin-1 Supplement block - all non-printable from a utf-8 perspective
@@ -2252,8 +2268,10 @@ tcl::namespace::eval punk::char {
         #    return [tcl::string::length $text]
         #}
         if {![regexp "\[\uFF-\U10FFFF\]" $text]} {
-            #return [tcl::string::length $text]
-            return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
+            return [tcl::string::length $text]
+            #punk::char::wcswidth has to split and examine dec value of each code
+            #By stripping controls + 7F (leaving tab) we've already eliminated the non-printable ascii - REVIEW
+            #return [punk::char::wcswidth $text] ;#still use our wcswidth to account for non-printable ascii
         }
 
         #split just to get the standalone character widths - and then scan for other combiners (?) - or scan for clusters first?
diff --git a/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm b/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
index c102ca29..4a7e3c32 100644
--- a/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
+++ b/src/vfs/_vfscommon.vfs/modules/textblock-0.1.3.tm
@@ -7725,6 +7725,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
     set RST         [a]
 
     proc frame_samples {} {
+        #@ for example 50us per frame and 16 frames - we are already at 800us
+        #As this can be triggered in @dynamic punk::args parsing for textblock::frame - even that can add up.
+        #textblock::frame shouldn't use punk::args parsing on the happy path - so this isn't an issue if -checkargs 0 supplied in that call
+        #frame_samples might be a candidate for memoization/caching - but we need to leave open the possibility of
+        #adding/loading or even editing frametypes in a running system and having that reflected in the textblock::frame argument usage display.
+
         set FRAMETYPELABELS [dict create]
         if {[info commands ::textblock::frame] ne ""} {
             foreach ft [frametypes] {
@@ -7756,7 +7762,11 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         -checkargs      -default 1 -type boolean\
             -help "If true do extra argument checks and
             provide more comprehensive error info.
-            Set false for slight performance improvement."
+            As the argument parser loads around 16 default frame
+            samples dynamically, this can add add up as each may
+            take 10s of microseconds. For many-framed tables
+            and other applications this can add up.
+            Set false for performance improvement."
         -etabs          -default 0\
             -help "expanding tabs - experimental/unimplemented."
         -type           -default light -choices {${[textblock::frametypes]}} -choicerestricted 0 -choicecolumns 8 -type dict\
@@ -7876,10 +7886,12 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #use -buildcache 1 with -usecache 0 for debugging cache issues so we can inspect using textblock::frame_cache
         set optnames [tcl::dict::keys $opts]
         set opts_ok 1 ;#default assumption
+        #NOTE: mis-spelling options in this list can trigger $opt_ok false
+        #and fallback to using punk::args to parse unnecessarily. - performance can degrate noticeably on tables
         foreach {k v} $optlist {
             set k2 [tcl::prefix::match -error "" $optnames $k]
             switch -- $k2 {
-                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -join
+                -etabs - -type - -boxlimits - -boxmap - -joins
                 - -title - -titlealign - -subtitle - -subtitlealign - -width - -height
                 - -ansiborder - -ansibase
                 - -blockalign - -textalign - -ellipsis
@@ -7900,6 +7912,7 @@ tcl::namespace::eval textblock {
         #only use punk::args if check_args is true or our basic checks failed
         #never need to checkargs if only one argument supplied even if it looks like an option - as it will be treated as data to frame
         if {[llength $args] != 1 && (!$opts_ok || $check_args)} {
+            #as frame is called a lot within table building - checking args can have a *big* impact on final performance.
             set argd [punk::args::get_by_id ::textblock::frame $args]
             set opts [dict get $argd opts]
             set contents [dict get $argd values contents]