The actual reason behind the long load times is explained in the GWX manual. The SHIII game engine loads everything (and I mean everything) in one go at the beginning when you start the game. SHIV does it differently and unless the devs revisit SHIII the load times are what they are. I normally go make a cuppa, read a good book, play with the kids, mow the lawn and then the game is ready to play.
To specifically respond to your questions:
- Why is there no speed loading mod widely used? One does not exist nor can it be made.
- Does the menu backgroun movie (a bik, I think) load, or just stream from file?Everything loads at start up.
- Can we effect what is loaded at app launch and what is loaded at game start?No the load sequence is hard coded by the devs.
- Why is the artwork for the loading screens much larger than the screen area it fills?I'm not sure what you mean. Mine fits perfectly.
- Why are so many blank textures not incredibly small, or just reused from the same file?Again I'm not sure what you mean. Can you give an example?
- Does the game allow modders to choose what sections of what files are used where on the screen?Yes and no. It depends on whether it is an object created by a modder or not. On some objects it would be possible. On others it would not.
- Can the modder choose tiling or stretching of a texture piece to fill an area of the screen? Again it depends on the object in question.
- Has anyone attempted to optimize the loading time? Yes GWX spent many hours attempting to make this as optimised as possible, hwoever given the way the game works it is what it is.
There is one way to reduce the load times when playing a Black Sea or Indian Ocean campaign and that is to load the campaign files for these theatres instead of loading all theatres.