Safari 4 works beautifully for me, much better than Safari 3. Did you try any of the suggestions that I made previously? Which ones?

I"ve done those in the past deleted cookies, does nothing for speed. But Jon, I thinking it could be my service provide Time Warner's fault.

I doubt it, frankly. I have the same TimeWarner and Safari 4 is really fast, definitely faster than Firefox, even 3.5. It even seems faster than my trusted iCab. I would side with Jon that some "enhancements" and add-ons may actually slow it down. Another thing, there are many checks of the site's integrity, certificates, safety, etc. that could have slowed down your browser. I guess, some of them could be disabled.
Sorry that you are having such a bad experience. Could be related to third-party software issues, IMHO. Maybe a need for some maintenance?
P.S. I also don't like the unusual refresh button position...

Hmm Alex, don't know what to say. Time Warner has lot of issue in my area, even Firefox having problems...

So think I should clear cookies again, and look for plug ins.. where look for plug ins?

In the security tab of the preferences, there is a box "enable plugins". Mine was checked and I just unchecked it. However, I don't know where to look for Safari-specific ones. The full list is in the Library>Internet plug-ins. I would disable PithHelmet, Speed download and the likes if you have them (haxies, I guess).
Alternatively, new Firefox 3.5 is fairly fast.

I have Time Warner and everything is fine, at least in my area. Alex's suggestion about plugins is good. I had to disable PithHelmet even though it didn't load (according to a popup window that appeared whenever I launched Safari). I don't know if you have PH so this may be moot.

It may be my block, Firefox is slow. I think one area can have bad pipes.

If you are using PPPoE, as most cable providers do, you are sharing the cable bandwidth with a lot of other users. If there are too many of users on your node or there are some heavy users that may not leave much actual bandwidth available to you. I have friends who run an eBay business and live in an area where only cable broadband is available. They work between midnight and 7:00 AM because that is the only time they can get anything resembling decent download and upload speeds. During the day, and particularly in the evening hours, they sometimes switch to dialup because it is actually faster than their cable broadband during those peak usage times.

You might try the speed tests at WhatIsMyIP to see what your actual download and upload speeds are. I have found those to be as accurate as any.

Great info Joe,
been thinking of switching to Verizon, so this info help with that decision

Joe, I tried your site and find it kind of misleading. It shows four server locations; it is not clear why because I have no idea where my server is. Depending on the server location, the download speed varies twofold; I have never seen such speeds in real life. The upload speed stays the same and seems to be accurate. I don't think any single site has accurate download speed measurement. I have tried several, with very different results; they also vary from measurement to measurement within 2-3 minutes.
Also, you are saying that most cable internet is on PPPoE. I thought mine was on DHCP. Or is DHCP on the router only? My PPPoE is always disabled.
P.S. In the IP address lookup, I could not find the server location either.