Thank you for your replies gents,
I think Daniel might be onto the source of the issue. Note, i'm using v20 presently
Due to the frustration with this lag, I rebooted my computer in the hopes of clearing the cache and getting some functionality back. When I opened the old file, it worked as intended with fast clickability. As such, I don't think a clean file will show the same issue Acorn.

I try to avoid these old files when possible due to this lag issue, so it's been a while since I opened one up. I checked my old log files and noted that I used to have this issue all the time a few years ago, and ended up increasing my RAM to 64GB but it did not help. I also replaced my fairly fast computer with a newer, faster computer but this "processing" issue still comes up on these old files.

The one commonality with these "processing" files is they are large and have many objects. Most are grouped, but there is still a lot of objects and the .xar file sizes is over 80MB.

Considering I was able to get functionality back by rebooting, it may be a cache issue. My old logs indicate that the issue would return after rebooting within about 2hrs.

I thought I had a procedure for clearing the XARA cache, but I can't find those instructions (so I'm wondering if I'm remembering correctly). Does anyone know a way to INCREASE the cache? I have 32GB of RAM and my Process Monitor says I am using less than half of this even when I'm experiencing this 'processing' issue. Thus I have spare RAM that could be allocated to Xara if it can be done. The CPU is also only taxed at approx 1-2%.