As ''snmpget'' from Debian Etch is a real performance killer I rewrote parts of my check_netappfiler plugin for Nagios.

The Good News[tm]:
Look at the load at the time of switchting to the new version:

The Bad News[tm]:
You need NET-SNMP's Python bindings which aren't in Debian/Etch so I did a quick ("works for me") backport of NET-SNMP out of Lenny

Feedback welcome! ;-)