Does the 35SP meter through the lens, requiring it to be fully open when metering? Does that happen in auto only or is the lag the same when metering manually in-camera?
The 35SP does not meter thru the lens; the sensor is actually in the camera's upper left corner, next to the viewfinder. But meter position has nothing to do with the shutter lag. On any trapped needle metering system the shutter travel must be relatively long and stiff, since depressing the shutter button physically "reads" the meter and sets the aperture before the shutter is fired.
As for the lag when metering manually, that takes from 30 seconds to a minute, depending on the camera. Because one has to look thru the viewfinder and do whatever is necessary to get the exposure to display, bring the camera down, set the exposure manually, bring the viewfinder back up, verify that the lighting hasn't changed, and if all is well, fire the shutter.
On unmetered cameras the shutter lag is over a minute. This is the time it takes to retrieve the meter from your pocket, meter the scene, move the meter around to get an indication light variations, read the meter, transfer the meter reading to the camera, re-meter the scene to verify you got it right and nothing has changed, recheck that you transferred the meter settings to the camera correctly, bring up the viewfinder, frame the scene and fire the shutter.
No matter how you look at it, an SLR is a heck of a lot quicker.