nnimap slow checking for new mail?

[Greg Novak <novak@ucolick.org>]

I am having the same problem regarding sluggish checks for new mail
detailed in this thread in May 2005:

http://groups.google.com/group/gnus.ding/browse_thread/thread/3446e973d47f26cc/365a82d99261013c

I saw very nice threads about this circa 2000, but tryiing the
suggested fixes didn't work for me, and I'm wondering if the situation
has changed since then.

Possibly releveant information:
I'm on OSX 10.4.2, Emacs from CVS version listed as 22.0.50.1,
compiled on Sept 29,  Gnus version 5.11.

The relevant bit of my .gnus file:
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
      '((nnimap "fm" (nnimap-address "fastmail.fm"))))

I created my IMAP groups using gnus-browse-foreign-server, and "G e"
on the imap groups yields:

(nnimap "fm")

When I hit g in the group buffer to check for new mail, Gnus checks
each imap group, reporting "Updating blah blah ... done" in the
Messages buffer, with each group taking about a second or two.
Needless to say, this time adds up because there are many folders.  Of
course, mail is only ever delivered to one of them and then split by
Gnus into one group per mailing list.  Does this mean I can turn off
new mail checking for all but the INBOX IMAP folder?

I treid replacing '(nnimap "fm")' with '"nnimap:fm"' per instructions I
found in this mailing list crica 2000, but it made no difference.
Supposedly this was supposed to result in messages from Gnus that
looked like "Checking blah blah" instead of" Updating", but that
didn't work for me.

Thanks for any guidance,
Greg