Setting up and turning off classes will achieve a bit more speed. Changing your monitor colors to 16 bit or even 256 colors will help a bit. Also putting in a larger video card - at least 16 MGs will help with the refresh rate.
I was only able to really solve the speed issue by buying a new computer. I got an AMD Thunderbird 1.33G - 266ms, with a 32 MG video card, and 256 MG ram. I now get the same speed on a 300 unit plot in SP 9 that I was getting with VW 8.5. I even put 700 units on the plot and it still processed quickly.
I bought the stuff and put the machine together myself - not a difficult thing now days. The total cost was around $800.00, not counting monitor, if you shop around or go to a computer show.
Otherwise I guess you just have to wait until they figure out how to make SP 9 run. I had too many plots to do to wait.