I think mission responses should not be immediate and should take in game time 10 minutes - 1 hour before you get payed, I wouldn't expect to hear back from them within half an hour.

Oh, and the "delete a file" missions. How do they know whether you did it or not instantly? I've replied while still on the server and gotten a response before I can click disconnect. Not saying I mind it.. just not very realistic.

Same, when I just started, I would connect to the Academic Database and change something and hit commit and reply to the e-mail to make sure I typed everything correctly before erasing my logs and disconnecting.

You're forgetting something: This applies pretty much only to low-level missions. For most of the higher ones you have to either wait or send some kind of information with the message or something similar.

As for the academic records... Well, I'm quite sure anyone can see his/her own record quite freely, and since hackers tend to do their job quite fast, it's not very unrealistic the answer comes almost instantly, especially with the insane processing capabilities and modem speeds of 2020 (supposedly). Of course, it wouldn't hurt if there was, say, 15 second delay or something similar.

As for the delete a file missions, obviously the employers can somehow see the files, but can't just modify them in anyway. Again, a 15 second (or something like that) delay wouldn't hurt.

You're forgetting that it's 2020, obviously surfing the Internet is much faster then.

It's not the fact that I can log into a system and have the page load faster but the fact that it shoulden't feel like an automated response (and shoulden't say so). The guy/gal needs some time to check and maybe they are not at their computer/phone/laptop.