> It may indicate a decently fast database, but for a local 
> network, latencies should be in the order of 0.2ms

True, but the motivation behind SRW/SRU isn't really for local
applications on the local subnet (that isn't to say there isn't a role
there) as opposed to services over the internet.

> In 36 ms I can ping servers in 
> nearby countries.

Currently my pings to the Library of Congress from the UK is 78ms.
However, we aren't talking about single (32 bytes?) ICMP packets for
SRW/SRU, but rather a chunk of XML over http which would typically take
several TCP packets to send (so we would be looking at some multiple of
36ms/78ms plus overhead caused by different packets taking different
routes and packet re-assembly). So I would be surpised if typical
network latency of an SRU request to the Library of Congress from the UK
was less than a few hundred ms.

Matthew