Version 10 of your test is really surprising. The raw JS append function just came out 250 times faster than the jquery direct append example, and 750 times faster than jquery append variable. This is on chrome for iOS.
Wow, yeah. Document fragments seem to be even faster than my original createElement. I'm really going to have to re-evaluate how I'm creating new DOM elements.
This is the kind of thing I was hoping to inspire. Sure, use jQuery, but use it wisely. That said, literally never make DOM in it, for so many reasons...