Google Cache IP

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that sometimes when viewing the cache the pages are slow to load??

I know that every request for a cached page is directed to the very same IP: 216.239.51.100

With millions of requests everyday, could it be that at peak times the server that this goes to is under heavy pressure??

Also, why is it that google uses the IP address instead of the domain name.. could it be that they wanted to squeeze every last millisecond out of the response time by bypassing the DNS lookup? Or do they want to in someway detatch themselves from the content they show by not having "google.com" in the URL??

well they ahve this on the header of the page, i think it may be like you said to remove themselves from liability for what someone may have put on their web-page... they put this on it too

Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content.

If the cache requests are directed alwasy to the same IP why sometime
if I look for a cached page google doesnt give the same page but it give now an old version and after 5 minutes an update version of the page(or viceversa)?

my guess is that it has more to do with the DNS issue Darren brought up.

while i single lookup may not take a bunch of processing power, multiply that by millions and you're dealing with a lot of processing needed.

also, and i'm just putting this out there, it may be partly to avoid an extra step only in that, in complex systems, the less sterps you can miss, the less the chance of error. that's jsut a thought ... i'm not a sys admin.