For me, even the page you say loads fine loads very slowly. In fact it is still loading as I'm responding. My best guess is that it is a fundamental problem with the connection to the database on your server, but the only way to know for sure is to debug it.
I'd create a blank page with some simple text... see how long that takes to load... Then add a database connection (maybe just the connection include with no actual recordset) and see how much that slows it down. Then add a recordset that returns a row from the contents recordset. See if you can narrow down what exactly is causing the slowdown and then you will have a clue where to start when trying to speed it up.
Something is definitely wrong, but it is impossible to say what exactly without some debugging.
Another debug technique you can try is adding this to the first line of the code on a slow page:
<?php echo(date('h:i:s') . "<BR>"); ?>
then add it a little lower on the page... then you can compare the two to see how much time has passed between those lines of code. By moving it around you should be able to narrow down where exactly the slowdown occurs.
