Phoronix (Google it) tested Ubuntu against Arch which is supposed to be
faster because you build it to your own specs and found little difference.
I suspect that your slow boot is probably due to a configuration problem.
Ubuntu 11.04 runs fast on my EeePC, so it is not likely a distro specific
problem.
I am a distro hopper and find Ubuntu as fast or faster than most. I also
have found that some distros run faster on some hardware for various
reasons.
There is no silver bullet unfortunately.
You need to test against your own hardware and needs to get a match. What
works for one user may not work at all for someone else.