Layers=long rendering times...

After the torture of 15 hours of upload times, I find I'm once again staring blanking at a loading bar. As i write this I'm currently waiting for a 40 minute render so i can finish fixing the sync on my video. With the amount of layers used in this video what should only be 2.30 minutes of footage is in reality something close to 15 which when matched to the amount of effects in the forms of opacity and speed modifying has resulted in render times which far outstrip my attention span. I just pray that my laptop doesn't decide to kill itself again otherwise I'm going to have to sit through all this for a third time...