I just had an observation...
When browsing the site using Firefox, everything comes up instantly, where as previously stated, in IE7, the banner loads, then the page comes up 20-30 seconds later. I've also run into some issues with posts being dropped, or buttons on the site not working in IE7. I've checked over my security settings, and nothing should be scanning, checking, or otherwise delaying the display of the site. Possibly some unnecessary code for us IE users?