Had to look up the meaning of "frugal" 
Maybe you should consider dividing models into (even) smaller portions.
Although I'm not quite understanding the L3Lab is faster statement, it's considerably slower than e.g. LDView or LDcad on my system. It's memory usage is impressive though (only 20MB for the 10179 model).
So I'm thinking you haven't got decent 3D hardware or an all around (very) old system.
If that's the case you could expect things to get worse because, most developers will assume you have (semi) recent hardware and hardware acceleration.
Maybe you should consider dividing models into (even) smaller portions.
Although I'm not quite understanding the L3Lab is faster statement, it's considerably slower than e.g. LDView or LDcad on my system. It's memory usage is impressive though (only 20MB for the 10179 model).
So I'm thinking you haven't got decent 3D hardware or an all around (very) old system.
If that's the case you could expect things to get worse because, most developers will assume you have (semi) recent hardware and hardware acceleration.