SZABESZ The name "Player" is misleading. It is not a player but a Virtual Machine. Developers(?) create applications for it (SWF). The way you create your code can have a great impact on performance. Lots of the SWF creators simply do not know how to write efficient code so their SWFs demand a lot of CPU power. It is not just Adobe's fault.
Adobe has done a lot to boost the performance by introducing VM2 together with ActionScript 3. Developers should do their best to implement speed optimized codes/SWFs, preferably developing for the new VM. (Which has for example H.264 video support, so you can imagine how powerful it is really...)
(Version 9.0.115)