Mickey, I only have one tip if you are lagged out of your mind. You can check your status report, watch your FPS carefully, if the local (your) fps gets below 2 this is a signal of extreme lag, when it goes below 1 you will hardly be..a..abl..e...to..talk..even typing will be affected.
I DJ a lot, which means I get in situations where my system is faced with handling a lot more than an empty sim. And then my fps sinks to below 1 at times. Still I have to deal with requests in IM and be able to reply to chat. My current solution (buying a new powerful laptop is also not an option for me) is to turn off prims, basically this means you canot see ANY prims, so people will have no prim hair and are usually bald, furries will lose wings, tails, ears, etc. etc.
You can do this using SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-9, but remember, using this will make it hard to move around (doors will not show, floors will be invisible, stairs will become a void. But it will give you an option besides leaving the place and TP to an empty sim.