I suspect strongly that many packages are doing full 'texconfig init' runs rather than running texconfig only for their relevant packages. An example in this case is jadetex. It runs (it's own copy of) 'texconfig init' rather than just generating .fmt's for what it is installing (jadetex and pdfjadetex). I suspect we can eliminate a lot of the delay w/ installing packages like jadetex.
I've just done a big NMU of jadetex but I didn't want to "fix" this since my concept of the true function of texconfig is a little clear, I'm not a TeX wizard, etc. I'll submit a bug against jadetex and also take a look at other packages which run texconfig. Any TeX gurus who have comments or ideas should please feel free to reply to me or to this list. .....A. P. [EMAIL PROTECTED]<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>