>For that last month or so, the speed of this system has become hideously slow at random times. Opening a message, previewing a message or posting message sometimes takes many minutes, and even then the action may not complete properly. While waiting for the click action to complete, you can't do anything else for fear of canceling the currently executing action. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when the system reacts fast or when it turns into molasses.
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>Consequently, the system has now become almost unusable.

It is the opposite. We are running extremely fast since the last month. Basically, the ratio is 5 to 1. I do not know if that situation is caused by some bad connectivity along the route or just a coincidence. But, that comment, in general, certainly does not apply to the performance of this side, especially since the last month when we moved to SQL Server with all the related infrastructure we tied to it.