On our network, 80ms is, I should say, RELATIVELY fast. But I experimented a bit and you're totally correct- some nodes are sub 1ms.

Yeah, 80ms is a little beefy. I just tried pinging my client (he's about 10km away, still inside Toronto) and got 16-27ms. Then I tried pinging my own server (with pair.com, same place that hosts this site) and got a much more consistent 17-21ms -- and that's all the way down in Pittsburgh, PA, about 50x further.

Let us know how it all turns out. :)