Since you've told me last time, Elmar, that you're working to improve plops performance, i though you might be interested to hear that there is a tool called TurboFlash.
For now it only comes bundled with Mushkin Midnight Series USB-Sticks, but improves performance of the Stick from around 25MB/s Read, to 40MB/s Read.
Might worth a look to steal an idea or two from. ;)
bye MedEvil