It turns out bug 5309 affects Picasa; a Chinese user complained that menus were terribly slow. The patch Aric committed here: http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-cvs/2006-October/027272.html seems to have helped. I'm wondering, though, whether this points up a problem in how linux distros configure their asian fonts.
I'm sending this via direct telnet to winehq's tsmtp server, since there's no other way to avoid setnding passwords in the clear from where I am at the momment (dang unencrypted wireless in hotel forooms.). Sorry for all the ^H's :-)