I'd been haveing reasonable performance with the internal GPS until recently when my nvd_data file got corrupted. None of the tricks I wrote about were working -- back to the drawing boards. I did additional experimentation and found some helpful tools which ultimately put me strait. I verified that there clearly is something different about Maps and Maemo Mapper when getting a 1st fix. Strange though, even though Maps got a fix with the corrupted cache, the cache remained corrupted after Maps terminated. I did a rewrite on my GPS lock troubleshooting section.

http://fragostech.com/MaemoMapper/#lockfailure

It suggests installing some addition packages and goes through the process I took in detail to return to a working GPS with Maemo Mapper and a valid nvd_data cache. I'm now back to the 2 to 3 minute time to 1st fix. I'm left with the question -- will nvd_data become corrupted again and did I play a role in that corruption. For the mean time I plan not to terminate Maemo Mapper until after it has a GPS fix. Time will tell.