Man, this is really a big problem the more i get this ready for the end user.  The delay in loading the text editor in FF3 is not good at all and I can see them getting frustrated already.

Is there anything at all that can be done to help this load faster or speed this up?

I had that problem exclusively in FF2 at some point. I had read back then that it was a problem with the java rutine (typically installed by the sun java install program). In the end I had to reinstall the whole pc before the problem was solved. Btw, your users seing this problem at your site, sees it at other sites too, so they may not know it's a problem or even knows that it's a problem locally on the pc.

For anyone else that is having this issue, it was the Office 2003 skin causing the delay and slowness.  I changed the skin to the silver and the editor loaded was much much faster.