That would certainly contribute to the slowness. Other things are process/programs that run in the background that periodically access your HD, like AV programs, MS FindFast (goes on w/MS Office), rollback utility programs, screensavers, etc. Shut off anything in the system tray that you don't HAVE to have running. Also,
you should bump up your page file size too (try doubling it, at least).
I didn't see what video card you were using, but a GeForce 2 (or it's equivalent) w/32 MB should be plenty. Might check the FS websites and Mickeysoft's site for known problems using 2002 and XP and for any fixes/tweaks.