From an outsider’s perspective, it almost seems like for some people caching of character models, textures and skins isn’t happening properly. Or a problem with rendering was introduced in the last patch.
The reason that I say this is the incidents of character screen issues where each individual character’s data has to be reloaded one by one (with a black background until every character is reloaded) coupled with map loading times fluctuating based on how many other players are nearby. More players, more characters and all of their info to load, longer times.
For those experiencing long LA map load times, go do this: go relog at Fort Mariner or near the Mystic Forge and time it, then do the same at White Crane Terrace/Shuttered Gtae POI or Hooligan’s Route/The Undermarket POI. See a difference?