I haven't posted anything like this since we moved to this forum, so I thought it was time.
Our highway and user data now results in a database that gets constructed from 3,727,950 lines of SQL. Over 20,000 .wpt files now get processed, along with 113 .list files.
A site update now takes about a half hour from start to finish. When I get a chance over the summer to unify the regular database and the one that includes preview routes for mapping and stats, I expect we'll cut that nearly in half. If I run it on my FreeBSD desktop instead of my Mac Book Pro, it also seems to be 25% faster, at least. I'm sure other efficiency improvements will also present themselves the next time I can get my hands deep into the site update code.
Load on the server to serve maps and stats pages (including running the cgi scripts and DB queries) seems nearly negligible.