the epg load thing did take a long time to find a viable soluion.. there is a lot more to it than simply "make epg load faster"
the reason its slow is a limitation of the stalker API. it basically grabs epg data one channel at a time.
they once said ok, make it grab alll channels .. that quickly triggered anti-ddos on some providers and caused users boxes to get blocked.. that would have been a nightmare

so they made it do the same thing, but much slower, mimicking the speed an actual user would go from what i can see.. this needed to be tested extensively not because the client cant handle it, but to ensure users would be blocked by their provider. they have also been adding a lot of improvements as well at the same time.. they know you all want fast epg, but they were smart not t just throw out untested product that potentially could have caused a lot more issues than it solved by releasing prematurely. stability and reliability is their priority..