Brink,
Thanks for putting up this post. I'm new to Win 8.1 (just received a Sager NP8628 with an Intel 4810MQ) and was curious about the delay. Thanks to you the delay has been vanquished!
Greg
Even though I also find it a nuisance I compare it to why one is discouraged from operating as root in a linux system. Even though typing "sudo" in front of everything needing admin privileges is a pain it does help to keep the system safe.
One work-around is to load shortcuts to your Win 8...