signor_john - 2:45 am on Nov 15, 2009 (gmt 0)

I think blindly taking into factor speed might not be appropriate since that would mean giving preference to a small two page site over a comprehesive Wikipedia article. Don't you think?

I doubt if Google does much of anything "blindly." There might be some sense in using pageload time as one of several possible tiebreakers in cases where all other ranking scores were equal, but I can't see Google ranking Bob's widget affiliate pitch ahead of a 2,000-word Wikipedia article on widgets just because Bob's page loads more quickly than Wikipedia's does.