pretty much what I do, my local sqlite storage per user slows things down a bit (but that's good since Twitter is even slower). so between requests, I often give Twitter enough time to finish the request for the previous 100 and store them in cache, so that when I re-request the same 100 (i always try twice), there are often there. but not always. it's a mix of overall twitter load, plus where/how deep down these 100 followers are stored, plus if a follower record is damaged (happens frequently), plus other time-out factors. that's what I am complaining about, it's so hard to work around this.