My photos can hit 1 to 2 megs each as well. My USB connection is actually FAST because I dedicate a mainline USB port on the side of my iBook for my camera. Files scoot along at about 10 to 12 mbps. If I do something dumb like plug my camera in to the USB port on the side of my keyboard, the files crawl along at less than 1 mbps.

My camera compresses images as they are taken. I've pulled almost 90 megs of data off of a 64 meg flash memory card. Makes for speedier transfer times.