I just tried it out again this evening. It's almost midnight on a weekday (SL time) so I don't think high web-traffic is to blame.
It took approximately 1 minute for my profile to load.
I clicked on a friend's link to load their profile. After approx. 1 minute 45 seconds, the profile had not yet loaded and I closed viewer 2.5 in disgust.
My internet connection speed is fast, my system is not bogged down by other applications... so WHY does it take so long to load???