In an attempt to decrease page load times, I threw out sIFR and re-re-redid my page layout. We're back to using 100% CSS (no tables) which breaks IE, but not as badly as the last theme did. Pages are now typically loading in under a second.
My theme is kind of wonky - it looks like my drupal install is weird. I'm just going to keep it limping along until 5.0 and the modules I need come out, and then I'll upgrade and start working on THAT database.