Hi Hatch,
Performance issues can be hit and miss for some players and can be due to a host of different things. This is why some folks have troubles quite a bit while others often do not.
If you're experiencing performance issues you might want to try clearing your Flash & Web Browser caches. We recommend you perform this step at least once after every product update. If you haven't cleared caches in a while (or ever) it can be the cause of some of the problem. Read over this news article and follow the instructions to clear your caches.
Once you complete that task, just restart your browser. You can also check out my profile (just click my name) for some tips on improving your performance.
Good Luck =)