>>Maybe the memo field is suffering from "Memo Bloat". If there are lots of deletions, then the memo grows each time. Try a Pack MEMO.
>
>The best we could do was about 5% optimization by going that way.

Look at SET BLOCKSIZE 32

This may require you to recreate the table and append the original data in, in order to get the new memo block size. But, maybe just packing it would do it after set the new block size.

Also, make the memo field Nullable, and replace all memo field with nulls where they are empty. Then pack again.