debian: gnome is slower with testing distro

[Brendan J Simon <brendan.simon@bigpond.com>]

I've been using testing for a while now on my Apple G4 laptop.  I also 
use some unstable packages but the apt defaults are set to testing.  I 
am using GNOME and Sawmill and I do an apt update/upgrade everyday.  In 
the last month or so I have noticed that GNOME is *really* slow when 
invoking apps.  eg. clicking on the gnome-terminal icon in the 
gnome-panel.  Also, when saving the current session via the gnome menus, 
the message box that confirms the settings have been saved takes a long 
time to appear.  I'm talking multiple seconds which is eons in computer 
terms.

Has anyone else noticed this problem ?
Any solutions or suggestions ?

Thanks,
Brendan Simon.