Need Help With Scattering/Repulsion Effect

I have made a pixel font using an array and have made it so it scatters from the mouse, (magnetic effect).

Example at BladeMonkey Test Page

However if i make this string longer it slows down quite severly.
Has anyone attempted this, and if so have you been able to make it any more effiecient??

Ill post the fla…its Flash 5

Thanks in advance

BladeMonkey

Have also tried to use this effect on a picture but the only way i could split the picture up into little pieces was to make a movie clip with a small mask and load the image under the mask.
So to break an image up i duplicate the mc 10x10 grid and move the mask to the correct position. However this involves 100 dupplicates of the image, which slows down the cpu considerably.

Is there anyway again to make this more efficient or is there another way to split the image up???

Heres the Flash 5 FLA:

Thanks

BladeMonkey