On my machine calling ObserveChannels on the logger literally takes 4 seconds (i've got a bustle log showing it), while waiting for the return of ObserveChannels there is loads and loads of disk activity. Strace seems to indicate that there is something going on with the SqlLite log.

In any case ObserveChannels should be nearly instantanious as it's on the critical patch from requesting a channel to the channel being given to the handler. And as empathy only shows the chat window when it gets HandleChannels it now takes 4 seconds for me between clicking a contact and the window popping up.. bad