InfoPath Dev

I have a client that is currently using a browser enabled form.  However due to requirements this form displays alot of data about he workflow, such as, who was it approved by , the time of aapproval and comment.  This form has 4 pages and every page queries the server for data to display on each next and previous button.  it seem now that they have several submitted forms in this library it is starting to perform very slow.

Looking for feedback on the following.

Will converting these forms to the client speed up performance? Since they already have about 100 forms, How difficult this would be to migrate without losing data on the form?

What are some suggestion on performance optimization on browser enabled forms and can you guide me on how to due this? (e.g. examples, sites, etc.)

Is there a way to query this data server side and how to accomplish this?

i also read somewhere about

1.       Set the data connection not to automatically retrieve and then use rules to set the query parameter before querying so that only a small subset of data is returned.  If you try to return all 2000, then it will be slow.  Don't filter inside the form; filter server-side by using a parameterized query. Can someone explain?

Any experiences out there on how you optimized your browser-enabled form in loading or perfoming?

Thanks

Here is a good article to look over that summarizes the major items that will slow down performance for your browser form.  Note that most will also apply to 2010 as well.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb380251(v=office.12).aspx

The point you called out is saying that using filters will retrieve all the data (however many that is) and only display the items that match your filter criteria.  So you can imagine if you had a list of thousands of items, InfoPath will retrieve all the items even if its only going to show you 1 or 2 that match your criteria.  Instead you can use queries which will let the processing being done server side (not in the InfoPath form).  The biggest benefit here is that the server will only return the rows that match your criteria.  So only the items that you need will ever be retrieved from your secondary data source.  Hope that sheds some more light on the topic.  If you have anymore specific questions or want any clarification, let me know and I'll my best to answer :)