Just wanted to chime (2 months late) and say that we have the same problem (perhaps not QUITE as slow, but frustrating nevertheless).
I raised both these issues and others in a rant on the forum a while back:
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,13226.msg56695.htmRegarding live credit card transactions, I have 2 further notes:
1. You can bring up the Register Events Participants page WITH live CC processing by adding "&mode=live" to the URL. It is still a little awkward b/c you have to know the payment type at the beginning of the process, but at least it doesn't take 2 steps. I have added "Register-CC" and "Register-Other" items to the navigation menu so that users can get to both forms easily.
2. Despite my disappearance for the last few months, we are still hoping to sponsor a few of the workflow enhancements I identified and this one is at the top of the list.
Lastly, thanks to the core team for the 3.2 enhancements that a) allow one to pass the event ID to the form and b) set the status to a default value.