> Exporting the .DBF to a delimited text file and then importing using an
> external table would be faster?

Walter,
a consultant I know has made very good experience with this.

He was regularly importing DBF tables (level 5 and 7) via ODBC.
I encouraged him to try exporting them to CSV first, then to integrate
them as external tables. He reported a massive speed gain (2 minutes
vs. 2 hours).

It's definitely worth a try!