for me, even a simple refresh of a task that I am viewing and have not changed takes several seconds

There needs to be some configuration or filter written that can tune the cache settings for the transfers so that the client can cache some of the data on the clinet for a small period of time, and use the if-updated-since headers for the transfers that are not cacheable

Attached is a summary, and timings required to perform a refresh

summary is produced with IEInspector http://www.ieinspector.com/