Version 3.9 formatting.php slows down page rendering with tables!

Since updating to 3.9, I’ve noticed that pages with big tables are taking an excruciatingly long time to load. For example, this page used to load in around ten seconds (and the page would be there except for the table), but now it’s taking 70 seconds. The 9×9 (times) function on line 176 in formatting.php seems to be what’s slowing things down. I’m wondering what the purpose of this function is and why it was added. Any risk in commenting it out? Thanks!