efficient version of 'sort | uniq -c | sort -n'?

[Matthew Woehlke]

Is there an efficient implementation of 'sort | uniq -c | sort -n'? I 
have a 4 GB core file I want to run 'strings' on, and the above is 
really slow.

What I've done in the past is written my own tool to use a tree to 
combine the three operations into one. Is there a way already in 
coreutils to do this? If not, would there be any interest in adding such 
a method?

--
Matthew
When in doubt, duct tape!