http://www.jockersoft.com/english/startupdelayer_index.php

lets you select the order that items load at boot and delay them so that they don't all try to load at once

so far I've noticed it takes slightly longer to switch from the welcome screen to the desktop but it finishes booting to a usable state a bit faster
I think keeping the programs from all trying to start at once actually speeds it up slightly
the hard drive activity light seems to not be lit as much or as constantly during boot
I even added two apps I normally would start manually and it still gets finished with no more hourglass or hard drive activity faster than it used to

Like MSCONFIG?

msconfig only lets you chose what to load
this lets you load stuff in specific order and delay things so that not everything is trying to load at once which in my limited testing looks to reduce hard drive activity