With respect to your foreach comment, I agree competely. For each element do this just makes sense, and, the idiom is present in other languages as well. (IE. Java (shudder), VB (shudder), Basic (shudder), C, C++) Also, if you think in sql, a foreach statement is similar concept to doing a combinded sql statement. (Eg. Select example from table where item in (select item from other_table where item_status == 'not_processed')).

Regarding speed comparisons, this has been discussed before.