A bit of a sweeping statement that "...software is suspect...."
We'll have to agree to disagree there. The GAS database isn't "running in the background" as such. RB communicates with the AirNav server that has the GAS data on it. Earlier versions of RB did have an issue where it ran slower without an Internet connection when Share Data was selected, but this was fixed ages ago. With an Internet connection, even this version ran without any problems. I still say that if RB is running slower with the Internet, then the problem is with your setup, not the software.