Hi Keith,
Yes, I'm exactly the same, but it's never been any faster.
I'm on Win 7 Ultimate - 64 bit, with 4GB RAM and Intel Centrino cpu.
I've always shutdown using the red cross top right of screen, as it make no difference to me if I lose MyLog etc., I'm just interested in what's flying around at the moment, and rely on the DB updates to keep me up to date - 210214 rows (aircraft). HTH
1125 update, just shut down X and restarted, took 1 minute, but whilst it was starting I had the white plate appear for a couple of tenths of a second, but if starting the computer from complete shutdown it take a couple of minutes, so I would assume that the cpu is doing other operations as it starts up.