I am running a sports type newspaper online and using smartsection module (latest version) along with another 2 clones of the same module. I have reached the 1000+ articles already and as said linking to access an article takes a lot of time. The server is a semi-dedicated one and is quite reliable and fast. One last thing on the home page I am also using the spotlight module from smartsection too.
Have a look at the site and tell me if you have any ideas how to make it faster.http://www.maltasport.com