Is it possible to exclude Application Data from Backup so it goes faster?

Not that I know of. I wish you could. It doesn't need to backup the apps and music/video, I already have those on my computer. All I want backed up are my contacts, bookmarks, voice mails and application data. I wish you have a checkbox somewhere to select what to backup.

 

I am at the point that I don't like to perform a Sync, at all, because of the VERY long backup time. Apple really needs to address this.

 

...but you don't have the data from those on your computer. That's what it's backing up - you don't want to lose a saved game or to-do list changes or stuff, that's the whole point of the "backing up" step.

You realize you can hit the X and cancel the backup, right? If you haven't saved any data within any Apps since last backup, you can skip that step and it'll go on to finish syncing.