I think it's an interpretation issue. When you say it's 45% faster I interpret that as "the new package handles work at a rate of 145% when compared to the ori

I think it's an interpretation issue. When you say it's 45% faster I interpret that as "the new package handles work at a rate of 145% when compared to the original, that is, 1.45 times as fast". I would rephrase your comment as "the package takes 45% less time to process a given data set".