rsync vs. rcp

[va_public <yahoogroups at vikas.mailshell.com>]

I got used to rsync's -v --progress option so much that I used it 
instead of rcp even to simply copy files across the network. I dont 
like software that doesnt talk to me! :-) I like the percentage bar 
that --progress gives!

To my surprise, I found that, when dealing with 1GB+ files, rsync is 
4-5 _times_ slower than rcp.

Yes, I know that rsync is optimized for sending deltas to a file 
across the wire and simply copying a file using rsync is expensive, 
but still 4-5 times slower?

Is this to be expected?

Thanks