GDB now takes 4 minutes to start up with remote gdbserver target

I believe this is a consequence of these patch series:

https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2015-03/msg00638.html
https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2015-04/msg00015.html

$ nios2-linux-gnu-gdb a.out
[...]
(gdb) target remote altera-3c120-1:6789
Remote debugging using altera-3c120-1:6789
Reading symbols from 
target:/scratch/sandra/nios2-linux-trunk/install/opt/codesourcery/nios2-linux-gnu/libc/lib/ld-linux-nios2.so.1...done.
0x2aaa8cc4 in _start ()
    from 
target:/scratch/sandra/nios2-linux-trunk/install/opt/codesourcery/nios2-linux-gnu/libc/lib/ld-linux-nios2.so.1
(gdb) break main
Breakpoint 1 at 0x2760: file /home/sandra/examples/croak.c, line 10.
(gdb) shell date
Thu Jul 23 16:02:32 PDT 2015
(gdb) c
Continuing.
shell date

Breakpoint 1, main () at /home/sandra/examples/croak.c:10
10	  n = sizeof (s) / sizeof (const char *);
(gdb) shell date
Thu Jul 23 16:06:31 PDT 2015

Is this really appropriate and user-friendly default behavior?  Are 
users really expected to wait 4 minutes for GDB to start up whenever 
they debug a program on a remote target now?  :-(

It is definitely the vFile traffic that is slowing things down....  it 
comes back from the "c" command instantaneously if I disable those packets.

-Sandra the unhappy