>>I agree with points 1 and 3; however, the 8 second lag is an IIS thing (the worker thread goes to sleep) not a DNN thing.
>
>I have a custom built ASP.NET site, it goes to sleep in the middle of the night, but never as fast as DNN (within an hour or so). There is something wrong with the DNN code.

The hosting company tech support told me this:

"There is always a startup delay with any ASP.NET site if it does not receive constant traffic.

After 20 minutes of inactivity server unload application domain, any subsequent hit will trigger application reload and ASP.NET JIT compilation which results in 5 to 10 second delay."