There's definitely a long-term regression in speed in menu browsing related to icon loading, but that's probably not even close to what you're describing.
Try doing a fresh install of MAME in another folder, set it to D3D, point the INI towards your ROM sets, and see if it does the same thing from that fresh install.
If it doesn't, slowly change settings towards what you have on your existing install until you see if any of them are the trigger.
If it does repeat the issue on a fresh install, I'd be looking at anything that slows disk access like third party antivirus or loading things off a NAS.
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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Re: MAME is VERY slow to start
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