I reinstalled OS X Tiger over the weekend. I read about the upgrade version of OS X Tiger does not do some stuff that a fresh install does (like use lookupd). So I said what the heck, and did a complete fresh install. I lost my book marks but it definitely seems faster during bootup. Overall there are some slight changes, which are all good.
The problem I had been having with ssh taking too long to make an initial connection with a server is still their though, and it might not be an OS X problem.
A year till an Apple x86 machine. I guess I have a lot of saving to do.