One thing about DOSBox is that if you give it too many cycles, it actually slows down. I'm running an Athlon XP 1800 (~1.6 Ghz) and it runs pretty well around 10,000 cycles. (I think Ctrl-F11 & Ctrl-F12 adjust the cycles while running). I've also found that it seems to run smoother in a window, though I have no complaints with fullscreen.
Also, close down as much background stuff as possible when running DOSBox. It seems to take CPU cycles in 'surges', and if a bunch of other stuff is running that's way more apparent.
Finally, mess around with the settings for each program, especially some of the graphics settings. Many games I've found run MUCH better with double-buffering turned off. I also highly recommend the front-end D-Fend (available through DOSBox site, I believe) as it allows easy configuration for individual games. VERY useful.
Haven't tried alternate databases, though I would assume that H3 > H2 wouldn't be backward compatible.
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