This isn't true any more. They recently announced faster frontend instances with more memory (http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/12/app-engine-161-release

This isn't true any more. They recently announced faster frontend instances with more memory (http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/12/app-engine-161-released.html http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/12/app-engine-161-r...), and I'm willing to bet this has been available internally since long before Thanksgiving. I'd bet money that this app used the beefiest class of frontend instances.