Dash performance decreases over time, requires Unity restart

Upon first logging in, bringing up the dash is very fast and I get a fluid animation both when opening and closing it. Typing in the search box is also very responsive.

However, as time goes on, I'll suddenly notice that it is no longer behaving well. When opening it or closing it, I'll only see 2 or 3 frames of a choppy animation. Typing in the search box can have as much as a 1-2 second delay and is rather awkward to work with.

Opening CCSM and toggling the Unity plugin solves the problem. As such, I've no reason to believe that anything else is to blame. I've installed no extensions and have only used CCSM to change a few keymappings (e.g. I've not played with any effects such as the dash blur). I've experienced this problem across multiple stock installs so I can only imagine others are affected as well.

I'm using the open source ATI drivers for my ATI 6850; I've not installed the driver recommended in "Additional Drivers" as it actually reduces performance in Unity (although it's much better if I use Unity 2D).

I tried to match this up with an existing bug but nothing seemed to fit particularly well. Hopefully I'm not alone in experiencing this; it really makes things feel unfinished and clumsy unfortunately.

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Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10

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unity:
  Installed: 4.24.0-0ubuntu2.1
  Candidate: 4.24.0-0ubuntu2.1
  Version table:
 *** 4.24.0-0ubuntu2.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     4.22.0-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main amd64 Packages