Hmmm---have you tried the usual safe boot/repair permissions first?
I know some versions of LW would be slow when hashing the "Shared" folders on startup, especially if you are sharing lots of big files. It would take forever and until I learned to watch the little count in the corner, I didn't know what was happening. I usually keep Process Viewer and Console open to see what's going on. There's a "MIG server died" message that locks up the finder for about two minutes . . . just some thoughts.
What versions of LW are you using?

btw--OS 10.2.5 is out.