Well, generally the players I have played with like to be engaged. Part of that engagement is actively doing things and rolling dice seems to be a fun thing for them.

Not counting the combats, I'd say there would be, in the 3 hours of actual game time (4 hour session, but side activities could easily eat over 45 mins), maybe 20 or 30. If there was a combat that took a few rounds, it could possibly hit 50-60. Usually, combat might take an hour (a couple of encounters or one particularly involved one) and the other two hours would have 20 or 30 task checks - most trivial stuff was just assumed. So that'd be one significant check every 3 to 6 minutes and maybe as often as 1 every 2 minutes in combat. 

My take on skills is this:

If the method of creating a character does not become significantly more complex, if the resolution or use does not become more complex, and if it lets you build more differentiated characters and have skills dealing with the things the game you play tends to involve, then there's no argument for caring much how long the skill list is.

Put another way:

My list is MT with a few add ons (roughly). During character rolling in MT, there are usually cascades to choose through and for most of my players, there wasn't a lot of dithering - they knew which skills they wanted.

In practice, when the skill was relevant, either I would mention it or they would call it out to me. Nothing any slower with skill A vs. skill B or vs. skill C... you have the one you picked during generation.

The CT list with the various extensions from the various expanded generations etc. isn't much smaller (if it is at all) than CT's. Once you factor CT's non-grouping of weapons, other than some limiting omissions, its list is quite long too.

My players came out of a mixed wargaming and D&D background and both roll dice a fair bit. Rolling dice also tends to be where chance enters the story versus the tale being more of a collaborative fiction write-up than a role playing game. The game part is where the dice come in to allow one to face risk and see what the fates hold.

If our group went 15 minutes without doing something interesting enough to justify a task roll, they'd think things were going to slow.