Attention: answers.gazebosim.org is deprecated as of August the 11th, 2023. Please visit robotics.stackexchange.com to ask a new question. This site will remain online in read-only mode during the transition and into the foreseeable future. Selected questions and answers have been migrated, and redirects have been put in place to direct users to the corresponding questions on Robotics Stack Exchange. Additional details are available here.
1) Searching for the material might slow down the loading a bit. You could try profiling the code.
2) We would need to see the complete DAE file.
3) You can't force the collada loader to ignore the material information.