dragon57

I don't see any issues downloading from Github specifically. I'm a member of the Bezel Project and all the bezel tests work fine and fast. It could be related to your ISP, or a million other things, but I agree, you shouldn't be seeing such a big delay.
The only option I can think of is to cancel the LaunchBox downloads and try using the Windows app we provide on the Github page and see if you still see a delay.
You can try the app from this link: https://github.com/thebezelproject/BezelProject-Windows

Not at the source. The Bezel Project doesn't pull lay files for MAME roms itself, but calculates those on the fly as native MAME bezels are installed. There must be a glitch in LB somewhere.

Note: the MAME bezels were just updated a couple of weeks ago. Depending on the age of your files, you may want to reinstall them.
Here is my lay file:
<!-- bezel.lay -->
<mamelayout version="2">
<element name="bezel">
<image file="bezel.png" />
</element>
<view name="Bezel Artwork">
<element ref="bezel">
<bounds left="0" top="0" right="16" bottom="9" />
</element>
<screen index="0">
<bounds left="4.625" top="0" right="11.375" bottom="9" />
</screen>
</view>
</mamelayout>

Excellent! That pic nailed it and fixes so much we will never understand.

Have you tried changing the Sidebar font in Options?

What I did when I performed a conversion like that was to exit LaunchBox/BigBox, then use one of those text editors like Notepad++ to mass edit the appropriate XML file.