iTunes Appears to be a "Hog" on my machine

I mentioned before that learned to really find Podcasting useful to me. See http://www.rmschneider.com/blogger/2005/08/podcasting-is-terrific-despite-first.html. However, I've also grown to notice that Apple iTunes, during Podcast update, seems to be the single biggest "hog" of resources on my machine. Why is it such a sluggish program?