Regarding PDF Speedup, there's a another freeware app out there called Adobe Reader Speed-Up, which I always had good luck with. It can be found here: http://www.tnk-bootblock.co.uk/prods/misc/index.php. Note, though, that I no longer have Adobe Reader installed, having made the switch to Fox-It. Given the fact that AR 7 installs its own launcher speed up service (can't remember the name of it), I'm not sure how much of a difference these utilities will make (NOTE: I've never used either of them with AR 7 for the reasons outlined above). I do note, though, that the authors of each claim that their solutions do speedup AR 7 launches nonetheless...

I agree with you about precaching - Adobe's service is one of the reasons I gave up on AR 7. No matter how many times I disabled it, it just kept coming back, like the Energizer bunny! The other reason, had to do with using AR 7 as the default in-line reader is both Firefox and Maxthon and its instability. Foxit is much more stable in my usage.

With reference to Adobe precaching, I DID find, that with the service running load times were very quick, hence my decision to ditch AR Speed-up. You're right, though, in that the two approaches are very different.