Again, you're not getting the point. Constant time != "fast", it just has to do with how the operation scales with N. The point, though counter intuitive, is that the constant time of the list operation is larger than the linear time of the vector operation for many values of N.
> The point, though counter intuitive, is that the constant time of the list operation is larger than the linear time of the vector operation for many values of N.
Citation needed. The kernel guys in particular would probably be interested in a faster alternative to intrusive linked lists.
Keep in mind that we're talking about vectors of pointers due to the problem domain (multiple lists of potentially large or polymorphic objects), so using vectors won't really help locality.
