Yeah, I have mixed feelings about Icaros VirtualBox distribution. Your experience mirrors mine.
Every system I have tested VirtualBox on, when running Icaros (or AROS) is DOG slow. OWB, like you tested, is a great example. It seems no matter how good the system it can take 30 seconds to a full minute for OWB just to open in VirtualBox.
Of course a quick install to a USB thumbdrive and then booting native it's a different world. Even on a netbook, OWB for example, loads in seconds. Everything is lightning fast.
One of the appeals of showing off AROS/Icaros running native to non-Amiga users is the lighting speed of it. Workbench is so fast it sort of feels almost unreal. All this is lost when using VirtualBox and makes it seem like molasses.
So, while on the one hand VirtualBox lets more users try AROS out, it also makes it look very unappealing and give the impressions of "Why would anyone use that?"
It's fast on my system (Core 2 Duo) using VirtualBox. However I cannot get the Icaros Desktop 1.2.3 update installed. The ISO image doesn't boot (some "multiboot" error), and if I set it not to boot, and boot from the virtual hard disk, not sure how to install it after that.
Also the internet connection doesn't seem to work, or freezes if I try to test or save it.
I did have internet working once, I think that was just with plain 1.2 though.
Anyway frustrating experience...
