I assume that was the web interface? I am still finding IMAP to be very slow and timing out. However it is strange that all this cropped up at the time I was having all my issues.
I still use Gmail for all my staff through a non profit partnership agreement where they provide us the education level free Google Apps setup. It has been great, but most only access it through the Web, I for whatever reason prefer an application to do my email. This is where the problem showed itself.