I xref the profile views into my cut sheets and label the pipes in those. Seems to work but on large projects can slow drawing open times down considerably.
When xref'ing files with dref'd data...does that dref data come in as well (the surfaces for example that are dref'd into my profiles)?
Yes - that's the problem.
Civil 3D doesn't support Overlay functionality for DREF; only Attachment. This is what can lead to duplicate DREFs in Sheet drawings, and due to C3D not being smart enough to realize that they're duplicates of the same DREF, it can greatly slow down drawing open from synchronization.
Further still, C3D isn't smart enough to only sync those DREFs that are stale - you save one Alignment's Start a station change, and the entire lot is synced.
Further, the internal DB doesn't allow us the luxury of only connecting to DB in design, it is always connected, and synchronized, etc. Instead, we *should* be able to have static DREFs that aren't connected which perform like blocks, and are only connected when Promoted for Labels, or Edit to the Object, and then Demoted back to DREF (sort of like REFEDIT).