It depends on the games you run. On my 15" AlBook I have no trouble playing games like WCIII. Plays as well or better than my Athlon that I used to have. However, my brother decided to load Halo on to it during his visit last week and soon discovered that it skipped occasionally unless he turned down some of the details. I have a 9600, so it didn't surprise me.
As far as your app loading, what do you mean by slow? Up to 10 seconds for load seems to be pretty typical to me. If we are talking a minute or two here, then there may be something up. Do you typically run many apps at a time? If so your memory could be an issue, as your comp has to page out to load an app. Do you run large, i/o intensive programs like movie editing and hardcore imaging? Then your hard drive speed could be the issue.
As you see there are lots of issues affecting performance, so more details would be helpful if you are looking for a diagnosis.
Jim
