Vista - ? Anyone experienced boot slowdown caused by USB hub?

I've been using a Cables-to-Go 7-port hi-speed USB 2.0 hub quite happily for
over a year now. The other day I took it out of one of my 2 front desktop
USB ports and put it in a rear port because I wanted to have the front ports
clear for my Bluetooth dongle and a new 8gb U3 flash drive I have ordered.
Devices were redetected and installed OK but then the boot process between
my 3 systems suddenly blossomed from a few seconds to several minutes.
Since then it seems to have taken care of itself, but I'm wondering what
processes were causing this? The ports are all high-speed USB 2.0.

Another hardware question. The flash drive is going to be a SanDisk Cruzer
Contour - totally Vista ready. Will plugging this into a front port rather
than a rear one effect Vista's Bitlocker encryption capabilities? I know
it is preferable that the drive is plugged directly into the PC rather than
via a hub.

--
Peter
Toronto, Canada
XP Pro SP2 x 2 + Vista Ultimate Triple Boot
P4 HT @ 3ghz, 4gb DDR, 700gb HDD
Soundblaster Audigy 4 PCI Sound
ATI Radeon X1650 Pro AGP Graphics