I sent out about 1 eth today and it got the six confirmations in about four minutes, and it is always getting those transactions in about six minutes or so, so i can really say that the network is faster than before, i dont know why you are saying that it is pretty slow.
And iota is just going up because of pure speculation, i dont think that it will keep going up, it has been growing a lot and it diserves to have a little dip before it touches five bucks each.
I really missed that train, i dont know why i haven't jumped in there before.