The part I was talking about commenting out is actually redundant code. The PageBase render method will do the translation anyway.

I used host settings to test improvement because that is where I knew there where a lot of DNNLabel controls. The more label controls on a page, the more you will save.

Thanks for the final question, I didn't know the answer off the top of my head.  It turns out that the resx files are cached for nine minutes (sliding window) if you are using moderate caching and 18 minutes if you are on Heavy caching.

What this means is that if the page that the resource file is loaded from is not used again in that time period that it will have to get the file again from disk and load it back into cache.

I just put an Exit Function statement right at the top.  I know, not the best, but it was quick and painless. :)