I normally use winRAR over 7Zip simply because its faster and only a little less efficient with compression. I did a few tests on different filetypes and sizes comparing the 7zip and winRAR default settings on their normal compression and their best compression, and in a lot of cases winRAR was 50% faster and in some it was actually 100% faster. But, I do like FOSS more. So here are my questions:

1. Is there a way to make 7zip speed up? I'd like it to at least be on par with rar's speed
2. Is there a way to make recovery segments in 7zip like you can in rar? I didn't see any, but I guess it could be a command line thing.
3. I tested winrar and 7zip using the latest stable version of each (4.something with 7zip). Is the 9.x beta release noticeably faster at compression?

I'm talking about faster at a comparable setting in WinRAR, not just lowering to bare minimum compression.

If it matters, I use a quad core intel i7 720 (1.6ghz)/(2.8ghz) with 4gb DDR3 ram, and the 64-bit version of 7zip.