TCP Timeouts within one second of connect()

All:

  Has anyone see an oddity with outbound HTTP client TCP connections 
from SOAP that return err: "Connection time out" from the lower OS 
stack, but happen within second or two of the connect() call from 
$object->method calls(from CLI testing code)

We're running generally up to date *BSD and 5.2.x and 5.3.x and no other 
mitigating factors to eliminate before composing this (like, Firewalls, 
or network issues).

~BAS