Comment 4 for bug 1089990

Try this out:

cd /opt/extras.ubuntu.com/drawers/drawers
sudo patch < PATH_TO_PATCH/speed.patch

In one of the routines I had for placing items in the draw, I kept appending to the icon theme search path. As the drawer grew larger and larger, each item took longer and longer to add. Where before 280 items took 100s to load, now it takes 2s.

Hope that solves most of your problems.

Ian