The one that works best for me is
show user signature - no
show user avatars - yes
show image attachment - yes, this also shows the image directly.

All the smilies & custom smilies in the text still show up.
I miss the pics in the sigs, but there were some big files (slow loading) & plaudersmilies.de smilies in the sigs, also slow loading. So with "show user sig - no", I'm guessing the loading speed has increased four times - no more FreeCell during the wait.

For anyone who wants to try this, you'll need to shutdown and restart the computer for this to take effect.

Thanks again, Cookiebaker