Thanks for the reply.
I should have been more clear in my original message:
Only when a subscriber exceeds the bounce threshold (and gets disabled) should a record be added to the pending.pck file. From that point on "You are disabled messages" would be sent to the subscriber with a confirmation string.
It appears that Bouncer.py currently makes an entry in pending.pck for the very FIRST bounce even though the bounce disable threshold is set MUCH higher than one for the list.
It is my understanding that the bounce date and count information is stored in the config.pck database.
It appears than the extra processing of the pending.pck database may be increasing the bounce processing time significantly and possibly unnecessarily.
Richard, I also want to thank you for your earlier help with umbrella lists it was invaluable.