>Worst of all, I think it has gotten slower. I wouldn't be able to handle the UT on a dial-up connection (which is what I still have at home).

As for this one, I use a connection like that with my laptop and it works quite ok and reasonable. Of course, the more content that has to be downloaded, the more time it'll take. So, if you have 500 new messages in a dialup connection, the ratio of the download time would be more visible than from a fast connection.

I also would try to troubleshoot where the slow time is when you think it has dropped consideraly. I've faced many situations like these where most of them were spotted at first from an ISP routing problem or such. When it happens like that, there is usually an explanation. For me, as well, last night it was slow, and we later discovered that it was related to our cable company. So, from home, it was slow to UT. But, UT was responding as fast as usual.