The render speed depends very much on what you have in your scene.

I noticed a drastic increase in render speed for a still life that uses IDL and SSS for props. (And that was for real, the timer script doesn't lie ;) )

Another render with 2 Vickys with clothing, hair and EZSkin was still faster than in 2012 but not as much as the still life.

Another user said that his tests with a scene with a lot of transparency, reflection and refraction showed more or less the same render times.

So it seems that some things render faster and some stayed the same. That explains the different render times for different people - we all use different scenes.