Here's a question - does the performance of your widgets improve if the remote is docked in its charging cradle?
I just finished putting all of the functional elements into my thermostat widget. It was running great until the last round of additions (limits to prevent temp from being set too high or low, button down images, etc). It runs a little too slow, but when I dock it in the cradle, it runs perfect. I don't know if providing power improves zwave performance, or widget performance, but it stands to reason that could be corrected through a fw update.
I'd be interested to hear your results with it docked.