The Loading of raw video thumbnails is very slooooooow. Is there some way to speed this up. The thumbnails on the timeline also take awhile too.

I don't know. You have to define what "slow" is. It takes a few moments for me, but that is all. I never thought of it as "slow".

 I haven't timed it, but it takes at least several minutes to load everything each time I reopen a video.

This is a direct function between how fast you computer, disk etc is, with the type of video you have. Compressed video ACHVD will take longer, a slow disk drive that is fragmented will take much longer. You have a fast computer, but how about looking at you disk drive? and the video format your using.

Here here!

Could this be a "Sandybridge" problem???

Bob