GFS2 is extememly slow performance

I have ran into another huge prblem with my cluster build. This is RHEL 5.6 and I'm using gfs2 for shared filesystems. The filesystems are only mounted on 1 server at a time. When we run the sql statement "CREATE TABLESPACE" to create a simple 16GB tablespace, it takes 14 minutes for the command to run. We then ran the same sql staement to create the same size tablespace on a non-shared ext3 filesystem and it only took 15 seconds.

I then ran across this article in the RHEL Knowledgebase:

Slow write performance to GFS2 filesystem

Well that the exact problem I am runing into. My kernel is vmlinuz-2.6.18-238.el5 and the article says the fix is kernel 2.6.18-274 or higher

My question is; Are my symptoms a match for this issue? If so i have ran accross another bug that has hugely impacted my work and slowed everything down. I have another identical cluster and I have converted the filesystems from gfs2 to ext3 and are in the process of installing oracle and testing the same CREATE TABLESPACE statement.

I guess I should never use gfs2.

Mark