Remote (ssh) execution of gnome-terminal w/ NFS home

Has anyone done anything with the problem executing gnome-terminal via 
ssh when the two hosts (execution and display) share home directory via 
NFS, that occurs on Red Hat 9? You know, the application takes forever 
to start, and eventually shows up with a message saying that an error 
occurred while loading or saving configuration information?

Some thoughts related to this:

   1. I think bugs like this are particularly bad since the ability to
      do operations like this is traditionally one of the strong points
      (or should I say "the strong point"?) of Unix or Linux.
   2. Even if there is problems loading my personal config, why don't I
      at least get the global settings? (No profiles are loaded.)
   3. I can't see why the startup needs to take so long even if there is
      some kind of conflict related to the file sharing. Shouldn't
      gconfd or the application be able to detect the problem, and give
      up directly?
   4. The old config method (plain files) might have several issues in
      theory, but the fact of the matter is that I never encountered any
      real problems with it. The new and "better" (client-server)
      approach, on the other hand...

-- 
- Toralf