reduce constants and optimize for Ruby 2.2

reduce constants and optimize for Ruby 2.2

Ruby (MRI) 2.1 optimizes allocations away on String#freeze with
literal strings.

Furthermore, Ruby 2.2 optimizes away literal string allocations
when they are used as arguments to Hash#[] and Hash#[]=

Thus we can avoid expensive constant lookups and cache overhead
by taking advantage of advancements in Ruby.

Since Ruby 2.2 has been out for 7 months, now; it ought to be safe
to introduce minor performance regressions for folks using older
Rubies (1.9.3+ remains supported) to benefit folks on the latest
Ruby.

This should recover the performance lost in the
"reflect changes in Rack::Utils::HTTP_STATUS_CODES" change
in synthetic benchmarks.