Revised 1.k.

  w:0:"big10.txt";v:{" ",x}'w;u:{#v[x] _ss " [^ ]"}'!#v;t:{#w[x]}'!#w

  #w / lines
  +/u / words
  +/t / chars

Counts for words and chars are closer but still short due to inexperience using k.

But it appears the script is now faster than wc.

  time -p wc big10.txt

  1284570 10956950 64886660 big10.txt
  real         2.78
  user         2.66
  sys          0.12

  time -p k 1

  1284570
  10956830
  63602090

  real         2.57
  user         2.42
  sys          0.14