Clement crushed a key bug that was giving us a lot of grief. This bug was causing erratic page load times, with some page loads taking 0.1 seconds then taking 3-4 seconds. During this time it was recommended to disable your flag count numbers in the header:
Sean, my experience today is that the first thread opened is only marginally quicker than yesterday ii.e. prior your announcement but thereafter there seems an improvement and the return to the list from leaving a thread is certainly instantaneous now