csvread / dlmread problems

[Ken Massey]

I noticed that csvread was very slow in octave-forge io package version 1.0.6.

So I installed io package 1.0.8, and now dlmread seems to be missing.
In fact, the documentation now claims it is not implemented:

  http://octave.sourceforge.net/doc/D.html#D

csvread uses dlmread, and I am wondering where it has gone?  Of
course, I am also interested in why it was behaving so slowly.

Any ideas?