Richard,
No, This widget has been around for years and 1000 of users are using SDE data. It is something in your configuration. It is just hard for me to say what. Can you zip up the main config.xml and your IdentifyWidget_#.xml (the one with the highest number) and attach it for me to review? The normal location to find these files would be "c:\inetpub\wwwroot\YOUR APPLICATION NAME\"