Hi Bhwolf,
in order to plate solve at all, on the local astronomy.net with a Canon 350D and 5sec exposure i use the field : Noise level → 90 in the ansvr configuration page.
With a value of 90 - 95 , and by having only the indexes that i know i need for solving with this setup in the indexes folder, it usually takes 3-9 seconds to successfully platesolve a RAW file from the mentioned Canon.
Give it a try!