Just thought I'd pop in to share:
Application sent to home office : 11/07/11
Application received by home office: 12/07/11
Certificate of application received: 29/07/11
Certificate of application date: 20/07/11
Letter from home office requesting additional documents received: 05/08/11
Letter from home office requesting additional documents date: 02/08/11
Additional documents sent to home office: 08/08/11
Additional documents received by home office: 09/08/11
PR received: 27/08/11
PR stamp date: 10/08/11
All in all, the whole process took 6 weeks
I wasn't expecting to receive my passport back until sometime in late October or early November going by other people's experience in this forum, but I guess my application was pretty straightforward. I didn't use a solicitor, just submitted everything myself. Good look everyone who's going through the process.