Augeas,
To answer your question about why the slow down in performance s...When the OS writes a file to solid state drive, the contents of the cell must first be deleted. This takes a lot longer than just a write (about 2X) Therefore, unless you have a brand new drive you are not going to see anywhere near rated performance level. There is a new TRIM feature supported by the latest ATA spec that allows the operating system to tell the drive to erase a cell after a file has been deleted. This prepares the cell for the next time it is written to. OCZ drives with latest firmware support this feature but most OS do not (i think window 7 beta does) Therefore, there is an opportunity for someone like Piriform to write a utility that does this task. OCZ provides a utility but it is not very elegant. It is a command line utility that only cleans 90% of the drive.
It is surprising that the Secure Erase actually helps...thats why I was looking for some details on how this feature works.
Scott