Thanks all for the suggestions. 
Tashar-- I'd love to go to 64-bit, but I got a great company discount on 32-bit Vista through work (but not 64-bit, unfortunately.)
I do have several of my figures at a distance, so i'll make some 'smaller' textures for them and, like GK recommended, set my spool down to around 200.  (I think its defaulted to around 520 right now.)