Using email class for large distributions

[eluser]Daniel H[/eluser]
Our member base is in the region of 35,000, and to manage our subscribers a little more easily I plan to use the CI email class for distribution.

However, two questions:

1) Is it feasible to use this for c. 25,000 subscribers to emails? If so, how long would this actually take to process (finger-in-the-air figure)?

2) This may be the dumbest question of the day, but with BCC batching, am I right in assuming this can only be used for identical emails, rather than those that have user specific fields (i.e. unsubscribe links, greetings, etc.).

Thanks all,

Dan.