I never heard anyone else complain of the slow microdrive problem that I had, so it could very well be that mine is just defective. Regardless, I don't need that kind of capacity anymore so the drive spends all of its time in the bag (a Domke F2, which I love).

Also, I haven't once done a firmware upgrade, which could very well take care of the microdrive issue. I put the USB cable into a drawer and forgot all about it.