We have same problems. It took 6 hrs to restore  220MB with 300,000 small
files without DIRMC, with disk DIRMC it reduce to 3 hrs. However it is
still too slow.  I did test for multi-session--multi drive, it dose not
improve much. As long as we use tape, multi session will be limited. Only
thing may help a little is holding the data in disk pool, and start multi
sessions. Another thing is using LAN -free backup site, meaning restore
from local SCSI drive directly. I am going to do a test on that.

We are dealing with same pressure to change the backup software too.

It is nice to know that if any other product can do that thing better. I
doubt.

George