Why is the connection between the Android emulator and a PC so slow? Host OS: Windows 7 x86

Android emulator target: 2.3.3

When I execute 'adb pull' or 'adb push' with emulator - transfer speed is about 70KB/s.
When I do this with real device it's normal USB speed. Why is this?
Because the emulator is buggy and slow and should be avoided if possible when developing. I'm assuming its because of the general problem with emulators, it is trying to mimic hardware functions on a software level which is extremely inefficient.