I have to say I am disappointed in file copying in ALL versions of Mac OS X, especially over networks. In OS 9, if I have a folder with 500 items in it and I copy it to another folder (on another hard drive or over a network) it starts copying immediately, no matter what the size of those files are within that folder. But with OS X, I have to wait while it says "Preparing to copy files" and then it has to count them and do who knows what else. Then it finally says, "Copying files to..." and I have to wait, and wait, and wait while it copies.
It's really frustrating. Maybe it has something to do with being based on UNIX, but come on Apple.