John,

You already know the answers to your questions from the DevShed
forums.

No, Firebird does not support "batches" in SQL.

It is, however, much faster on prepared statements. Create a single
INSERT statement with parameters, and assign the parameters, then
execute it in the loop. Also make sure to use explicit transaction
handling.

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - development tool for Firebird and more!
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com