Thanks for your objections. They are reasonable. > Won't disabling those things interfere with Inkscape's performance, as well? Maybe, I won't consider this as a general solution to improve inkscapes performance >don't think slow running on Windows 7 is a very widespread problem in the first place Y...

Got the same problem. Try disabling "visual designs" AND "desktop composition":
1. Right click the programs shortcut/exe
2. select Properties
3. select Compatibility tab
With this workaround inkscape works within my win7 as fast as within my openSusi.