And now the bad news.  I tried your suggestion and
unfortunately it did absolutely nothing to increase the
parsing speed.  It would still take me probably around a
week if not more to mirror the site I want to mirror. 
WinHTTrack would be a great program if it weren't for the
slow parsing speed or a way to do without parsing altogether. 

As it stands I guess my only choice is to completely cut out
the forums which for me is the heart of the site.  

Is there any way at all that parsing speed could or will be
increased in the future?
Guess I'm addressing this to Xavier...