Netscape Mail 7.2 speed problem

[nkostaki]

Having had two mail crashes (and loss, despire recovery programs used) with Outlook Express 6 in my Win2k+SP4 system (and having googled around to see I am far from being the only one) I decided to switch.

Listening to a knowledgeable friend, I've installed Netscape 7.2 and imported my not insubstantial emails from OE 6 (over 15,000 messages).

After three days of use I'm faced with a major problem: it's so SLOOW. You click on a newly received message to read it, it takes full seconds to do it. You ask for move around mail or folders, it takes very long. In general, OE is two to three times as fast.

Now, on the other hand, Netscape's feature list is impressive (and the browser's speed is ok).Is there a way to speed it up? I've looked through the various options and tinkered with some, with no speed improvement. Can someone suggest a better alternative?