I am personally using VMWARE fix, so far so good no complaint. Not going to try out any other SSL Tunneling and risk getting banned.
For single core processor user, VMWARE fix can slow down your pc a little. For multi core users, i don't think you will notice any performance issue, due to multi core processor is great at handling multi tasking.

My ping nowdays ranges from 170ms-350ms. Which is much much better from my previous ping which starts from 300ms-900ms. It still very much depend on your line quality. If you get a crappy connection, don't expect a good latency. The 218 ip can usually stay around 200ms-350ms for me.

I am starting to think, Linux is better programmed to handle TCP traffic than windows box. Else, there is no way i can justify why routing traffic thru a VMWare Linux box, has such a significant boost in ping times.