You know what is messed up is that a 100k BTC buy order should be pretty much instant. What follows it is the part that may cause lag but I always find it odd that when the market moves really quickly in either direction gox lags like fuck. It is embarassing.
Yup. I've done a fair bit of work with databases, there's no reason on earth a company that makes millions has a trading engine that lags that hard. Someone on reddit claims they calculated MtGox can handle 40 trades a second. 40?! Even 400 would be surprisingly low. Either they're stubborn and refuse to hire outside help. Or they don't want outside help because they are insider trading the fuck out of market orders. The more trades that queue up (during lag) the more they can make. Large market order? Hang on, lets buy up some limit orders from the front, re-sell them at the back of the market order and we never lose.
Mark Karpeles has stated they want to go legit in the US and it will cost 25M. Wait, 25M? You've maybe made 4-5M? You have 18 employees? Where's the other 20M+ coming from? He's either going to use our fiat or MtGox has been insider trading the fuck out of the exchange.
The only reason I can see them sticking with such a poorly designed/running trading engine, is because they don't want anyone seeing how it works. Combine that with the lofty goals they have and no way they could pay for them unless they've been ripping us off for years.
The whole site is shady, the CEO is shady, the sooner they're dead and gone the better.
Cool. When is your exchange launching?