Re: Groups and optimisation
You can soft group text (Arrange > Apply Soft Group) and your text is still text and searchable.
Soft Group is generally used to group objects between layers such as navigation buttons with mouse over states, but you can use it to group objects on one layer as well. On the other hand, objects that are soft grouped as I discover, are not grouped in the sense that you can move one object in the group and move all objects at the same time.
The bottom line is grouping objects should not effect your site one way or the other and unless there is a logistical reason to do so, I would not group objects together.