I don't know why i didn't check for this earlier - normally I use the "noatime" parameter in my /etc/fstab, and I got re-introduced to it with my Asus eeepc laptop with solid-state disks. Well, it's good for thumb-drives too.

I'm running Knoppix 5.3.1 booted from an 8gb thumbdrive with a persistent image, and here is what the relevant lines of my /etc/fstab look like after editing it to include "noatime":

Code:
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/sdc1 /media/sdc1 vfat noauto,users,exec,umask=000,shortname=winnt,uid=knoppix,gid=knoppix,noatime 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/sdc2 /media/sdc2 ext2 noauto,users,exec,noatime 0 0
It really seems to speed up the whole operation, and cuts down on unnecessary timestamp-writes to files that are read-only! I guess you don't want to use noatime if you need forensic timestamp security. I just hope I'm not just too tired and fooling myself since I have no way to measure the performance.