Hi,
(Sorry for the inconvenience caused due to previous misformatted patch, I've most definitely figured out the problem this time. Thanks Michael, Daniel, and Ingo for your help.)
This patch speeds up e2fsck on Ext3 significantly using a technique called Metaclustering. Metaclustering is being discussed on LKML in some other threads, here is the latest patch against the 2.6.23.13 stable kernel, any help in testing and evaluating this will be greatly appreciated! While I'd direct anyone interested in details of metaclustering to other LKML threads discussing it, I've enclosed a brief description here:
Metaclustering refers to storing indirect blocks in clusters on a per-group basis instead of spreading them out along with the data blocks.