Not so terrible? Many people are still on dialup. Studies have shown that even a five second load time can result in a substantial number of possible new users to simply stop the download and leave. Once a user allows the full page to load, then subsequent loads will be a tad shorter (until you again change all the images), but anyone coming to the forum for the first time will see a delay.

Believe me, you current home page setup is doing you much potential harm, and to absolutely no good.... other than you personally like to see the images there.