Roxy,

'One thing the Slicer programs could do is slice a couple of layers and start sending that G-Code to the printer. The printing takes enough time it would seem the Slicer could be doing that in parallel'

This is a great idea. I noticed that on my printer the slicing speed increased dramatically when I bought a higher spec computer. This in turn increased the quality of the prints as my solidoodle has to remain connected to the laptop during the print.