I'd seen somewhere on the blogosphere (perhaps on John Dowdell's blog?) that Macromedia was running a public beta of the Flash 8 player, and that it apparently kicked some serious performance ass over the current version.
I just downloaded it on one of my systems, and holy crap is it fast. Why wasn't flash this fast all along? Loads fast. Almost psychically responsive (things happen instantly, with no lag).
Macromedia - Flash Player : Macromedia Flash Player Public Beta