Grub V1.97beta4 significantly slower than older

I've a 64bit Quad Intel machine with 4Gbytes of ram. I upgraded from Ubuntu 9.04 32bit to Ubuntu 9.10 32bit and have noticed a new significant delay in the booting process prior to the arrival of the Grub menu. I am using Ext3 file system and this is a dual boot machine with Vista.

So far, a search of the web only seems to suggest I roll back to an earlier version of Grub by a rather messy reinstall of an older version of Ubuntu and then careful selection to preserve to older Grub during another installation of V9.10.

I am also considering just removal of Grub 1.97beta4 via Synaptic Package Manager by selection of an older legacy copy of Grub. But I fear I may crash the boot process.

What do you recommend?