Still in the topic of performance, I'll throw a little freebie. Visual Studio seems to take an inordinate amount of time to open .aspx files for the first time. I noticed that the status bar read "Initializing toolbox..." for a long time. I'm mentioning .aspx but it really applies to any other webforms markup like .ascx and .master as well.

Heck, I don't even have the toolbox loaded, docked, or hidden in my IDE. I don't use the toolbox at all for web develoment. I'm more of a source view kind of programmer. So why should I be penalized like that?

I shouldn't. Here's what I did to speed that up:

• Show the toolbox
• Right-click and select "Choose Items..."
• Uncheck every item that the namespace contains "Web" (I also unchecked controls that I can't stand, like the database connections and data sources.)
• Click OK to save that, close the toolbox again and enjoy your precious stolen time again.