Improve performance with large number of onthefly objects?

[Fox5]

Originally Posted by farshizzo

Are you saying that you want to create an object, modify it, then create a copy of it before the modification? If so, this is not possible. The copy command will create a copy of the object at its current state. You can create a master version of the object that is hidden, and use it for all copies.

No, rather:
I want to create the original object.
I want to make n copies of it.
I want to make the copies children of the original.

Since they're all onthefly objects, is it possible besides the way you detailed (doing an identical startlayer/endlayer to create each object as a child of the original)