A trick I picked up here with the "new" driver was to turn the camera on. After it comes up, press the power button to put the phone in "sleep" mode. Hold your hand over the camera lens, wake up the phone with the power button, wait 5 seconds and see if the frame rate is a little faster. Goofy trick, but it seems to work.
Yeah that trick works, but the picture is darker and a lot grainier. Also if you point the camera to a bright light source, it "resets" and then when you point at dark areas again, it lags. That trick seems to "initalize" the camera to a dark setting, for lack of a better phrase.