Difficulty on the -testnet is annoyingly high. I propose resetting the -testnet with a new genesis block, and changing the -testnet rules for difficulty adjustment as follows:
1. Adjust difficulty on the testnet every 126 blocks (1/16'th the regular net adjustment).
2. Keep the "difficulty can adjust up at most *4", but remove the limit on how quickly difficulty can adjust down. Minimal difficulty would remain the same.
Unless I hear howls of protest or better ideas, I'll generate a genesis block and submit a pull request with the changes. I won't switch the -testnet faucet to the new chain until we've got 0.3.20 release candidate builds out.