widgets plugin too slow

Hi,
I purchased the Widgets plugin but I am afraid that it is too slow.  A page containing the widgets takes about 30 seconds to load, whereas all other pages on the site take between 1 and 7 seconds.  So I'm afraid to deploy this plugin on my site due to the load it might create.  It is most likely due to the total number of comments in the database which is around 375,000.  Is there anything that can be done to improve the performance of this plugin?  Note that it does not seem to depend on which plugin tabs are activated.  I tried disabling several of the tabs but it did not help.
Best Regards,