Ok so I like icons in my popup menu. Over the years I've almost memorized icons for most programs I ever use. And let's face it, they add some color to the popup menu.

Logically I turned 'em on. But now it takes over five seconds to load each sub-menu. I tend to not like delays, even when so small. I do see why there's a delay (icons loading and all) but I don't like it. I don't think I can accept that it can't be fixed.

Of course, I set Popupmenudelay to 0, no change, and the loading delay is gone with icons off or after I've viewed a menu once (since winxp caches icons after first view per session) so I'm quite sure the icons are at fault. I've read the docs and looked all over. Anyone know where to get some insight into this icon loading delay?

Defrag. If that doesn't help, re-install windows.
That load time is mostly hard drive bound.

One thing you can also do is try xPopup and turn the caching of popups on.

And increase your icon cache; http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/57/.

I think you can do this with TweakUI as well.