@rossi,
I did as you asked and deleted the EPG folder from within the default skin, Vix-Night-HD and Blue-HD and apart from EPG looking different, the lag was still there i'm afraid. I don't and never have used the 1080 skins yet so it's not related directly to them.
If it helps you narrow down where to look, I also FTP'd the "AutoBouquetsMaker" folder from the good build 090 and also the entire files/folders from within "/usr/share/enigma2/" (this included folders like "display", "extensions", and the skin folders, etc) all from the good build 090 to a fresh install (with no settings restore) of 098. I still had a lag on epg.
To check I wasn't getting paranoid, I went back to 090 and no epg lag was noticeable.
From my point, the problem is not within ABM or obviously any files/folders within /usr/share/enigma2/. If all the EPG files are within the /usr/share/enigma2/ folder then I don't think the EPG is causing it itself.
Anything else you want me to try?