A non-spring-loaded slot is something I see as a positive thing. My non-spring-loaded Edge and R4 are great and easy to handle, my spring-loaded Acekard sucks ass (good thing one can use it without the springy-thingy as well).

Your Sandisk card should be fast enough, I would guess. I've never had any speed issues with genuine Sandisk cards, no matter what generation - they constantly perform faster than the competitors, as far as I tested them. (I got ~5 Sandisk cards, 1 Kingston, 1 Transcend, 1 No-name - the Sandisks are the fastest of their respective generations).