Hrm, I've never seen that and am definitely going to have to look at it closer, but I don't know that it can fully solve my problem (if it solves it at all). Mainly because in the case that started me on this other people connect to the system and I assumed they'd all have to switch, too.

I have a feeling the sockets are plenty fast enough, I think its buffering at some level that is causing the issue. Or something. What's really strange is the fact that when I print the line in two pieces it takes longer than if I send it all out as one, which is exactly what buffering is supposed to help with. I guess the buffering overhead could be just that high in which case maybe sensing a local connection and turning off buffering would do the trick (if you can even fully turn it off).