1) Choose times that may be low-peak for your time zone when you know you will be looking at the high bandwidth items such as stories and photos (If everyone does this it will balance out across the globe)
2) Download when you can then look at the items later off-line
3) Try searching at the beginning of the hour instead of near the end of the hour. My assumption on this could be wrong, of course
4) If there is something you have tried to see repeatedly and are still having problems, let me know and I will send it to you. I may need to move more items to my 'trishakendrick' site.
I appreciate your readership and your patience as we deal with the old addage - 'you get what you pay for.'
Thanks,
KINJA