Cleanup and optimizations

Completed and removed a number of TODO: reminders.
Enabled static_assertions for compilers that support them.
Synchronized the VS2008 project with current development.

Benchmarks:
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* For MS compilers I omitted the frame-pointers in the benchmark release
mode. This has a dramatic increase in performance for the Hg version.
* Added reference pass-through of the output type in the byte-order
conversion logic to eliminate many unnecessary copies.

Current results:
Fundamental: 13% faster
Packed Bits:    7%   faster
Unaligned:     12% faster
nested:           70% slower
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overall:           12% slower