Cetin-

>No! Don't sweep DataReader from your brain. Actually now thinking at home I realize DataReader is still the way and you need no cache there (as I remember it'd be OK for you if you see the initial list for the life of session).

Too late. It's gone. :-P No, I'm just joking!

>while (myReader.Read)
> myList.Items.Add(...);
>myReader.Close();
>Then list is an unbound one that doesn't need any caching.

Yes, I think this would work, too. In that case the viewstate should handle my postback. Eventually I decided to stop (randomly) trying things and post here with a question, so I never did get around to this idea. In hindsight, I should have tried this one earlier rather than some of my other hairbrained ideas. *sigh*

>Yes, I'm caching data that's changing. I'm not sure if it's fast for I'm currently using localhost. If it's not an illusion then it's really fast (I was never happy with ASP being slow -amazed with ASP.Net) - didn't do any benchmarking or monitoring what comes and goes.

Cool. I'll definitely give this a look for one page in particular that could do with speeding up. Thanks to you and everyone. Helpful discussion.