Optimising a large Vector Movieclip

[Desolution]

I have an extremely complicated (10 frames, 3 layers, around 200 objects per layer) vector object, and wish to create 5 instances of this object in my SWF simultaneously. Unsurprisingly, attempting such a feat causes my program to slow down dramatically.

I can freely combine the layers, convert to bitmap or whatever is needed, although the object is very often rotated in my ActionScript code, and is at the third layer of a much larger object. What would be the best (reasonably fast, as I need to repeat this process 10 times, on 10 seperate frames each time) way to optimise this object to increase the run speed without hitting load times too drastically? (The size of the object in question is 7x700 'pixels')...

[tadster]

Use png images.