VFAT access times in 2.4.1 kernel

[Brian J. Conway]

Hello, I just switched to 2.4.1 from 2.2.18 and have the kernel set up
in generally the same manner in terms of functionality.  I've found that
VFAT access is incredibly slow in directories with a large number of
files.  I have a single directory with approximately 1500 items, all
3-5MB apiece, and if I do 'ls -alt dir/ |more' on that directory, it
takes a full 2 seconds do list the contents of the first page.  If I do
so again immediately afterwards it displays immediately, but the same
effects occur if I wait any considerable amount of time (> 2 minutes). 
I've experienced no such problems under 2.2.18, and I'm running a 20GB
Maxtor drive running at UDMA(33) without any known issues.  Any ideas?

Brian J. Conway
[e-mail]