"Speed of the subtitles" option has no effect, ever?

[VLC22]

I am using VLC 1.1.4 (on Windows 7 64-bit) and have found that the "Speed of the subtitles" option has no effect, even if I set it to 100 fps or 25 fps, etc. The "Advance subtitles" option seems to work fine. This was also the case with the previous version of VLC I was using.

I have tried this using an mkv file with a separate SRT file (where the subs were drifting out of sync because the movie is 24fps but the subs file is for 25fps), and also using a completely separate mkv file with the subtitles built-in inside the file without success.

This appears to be a bug?

My only solution seems to be to remux the SRT into the MKV, since MKVmerge will let me set a speed and delay for the subs.
Or is there an easier solution?
Is it a good idea to put an SRT into an MKV?
Is SRT the/a preferred format for subs in a MKV file?

Is there a nifty freeware program to adjust the times in the SRT file?

Thanks.