The easier question is, “why is this so slow?” But asking a question in a positive is worth evaluating on it’s own. The folks over at Visually did a nice infographic on page loading speeds and what makes a page loader faster than others.
Compress images, javascript, and CSS, minimize http requests, and running up-to-date server software are some of the usual suspects when it comes to slowing down your site. After doing this install some tools like Y!Slow or Google PageSpeed and measure your results.
Page speed is always going to be part of a “good user experience” and is always worth looking into.
