Yes, I don't know how much processing power it takes. I don't think it takes much, but I really don't know... One thing you could do to lessen it for categories with a lot of links is to exit the loop as soon as it counts more than 9 links:
<%set Link_Counter = 0%>
<%loop links_loop%>
<%set Link_Counter += 1%>
<%if Link_Counter > 9%>
<%lastloop%>
<%endif%>
<%endloop%>
That way if there were 20 links in there it wouldn't count all 20 but as soon as it got to 10 would stop the counting.
--Frank
<%set Link_Counter = 0%>
<%loop links_loop%>
<%set Link_Counter += 1%>
<%if Link_Counter > 9%>
<%lastloop%>
<%endif%>
<%endloop%>
That way if there were 20 links in there it wouldn't count all 20 but as soon as it got to 10 would stop the counting.
--Frank