Strangely this problem appeared when I installed and used the "BSM
Simple"-theme (http://gnome-
look.org/content/show.php/BSM+Simple?content=121685) - this theme uses
clearlooks - although I used the preinstalled clearlooks before (with standard
settings).
I don't know the reason, but nautilus is unuseable in list view, it needs ca 2
sec to open a directory. The other views work normal.
I removed BSM (note: I had installed it without root in ~/.themes, so the
clearlooks-engine should not be modified by it...), but problem still remains.
Workaround is to use another GTK-engine than clearlooks, or to avoid list mode.