[djcapelis]

Orders don't take long. Most of the time (i.e. when the exchange is operating normally and isn't down) they pretty much just happen so long as you know, the orders can match with other orders. If you buy 10BTC at market rates and tell mtgox that you don't really care what you pay for it, then it'll just go ahead and do it. There's not much waiting involved other than the web interface refreshing, which isn't strictly necessary since you could trade by API too if you'd prefer that.