I am using 8.5.2 Gold release on 3 - 4 machines and this version is responding very slowly. Not at the startup, but after you login and try to open database on the server (especially Domino Directory). I know this isn’t due to installation or my PC, because its reproducible on 3 - 4 different machines, some on Win7 and some on WinXP. In some cases it takes 10 min to put any document in Domino Directory to edit mode, and the server is on my LAN.
I have 8.5.2 installed on several client machines and have not experienced any poor performance at all. I am using 8.5.2, along with the other admins, to administer all of our servers and that is working very well also. We have both Windows XP and Windows 7 machines involved.