CopyPixel Particle Engine

I’m trying to create an a particle engine which is as extremely efficient. I was thinking about perhaps using copyPixels, and blitting each particle on screen based on a array of points.

I’m not sure if this is the best method, since it would be difficult to give each particle attributes such a life span. The alternative of course, is creating each particle as a sprite and adding it to the display list, but I am sure there must be a bitmap based method which is faster.

Can anyone give me their opinions as to how I could create a super fast particle engine?