I've run a few tests and I'm fairly sure it's n2DLibs sprite drawing function. I already did test IkarugaX for you, and the time-to-scroll-sprite-over-screen time is almost the same, namely 06:55 seconds. When I take away the fullscreen pic on the background, it's suddenly three times as fast: 01:91 seconds. It was mentioned on IRC that the first versions of n2DLib (nFastGraphX) supposedly were faster (jetpack impossible 2). This has been proven wrong by porting the source to the newest version of n2DLib, see attached files. Hayleia told me that pictures are drawn to screen by copying them pixel-by-pixel to the screen. I don't know exactly what the nspire can do and what not, but I think you'll have to thoroughly re-think the way you are drawing sprites.
I really hope you can fix the lib though, I love how easy to use it is.
EDIT: Of course, this does not explain why it is almost twice as fast on the b/w series nspire, but because both methods for drawing (both with and without buffer) are about the same speed (should I say slow? that'd be a lame joke), maybe it's the display driver?
But no, that's ridiculous, gpsp can run F-Zero at much higher speeds