I did it in 13 hours, spread over about 9 months.
I'm quite surprised to see that so many people did it in under 10 hours.
I think that time to first solo does indicate flying ability to an extent, but only if all things are equal: weather, a/c type, instructors, frequency of flying etc etc.... and of course all things are very rarely equal. However it's only natural to want to be good at something and of course you'd be proud if you soloed in 4 hours or whatever when the average is probably 15 or something.
Esperto, congratulations on doing your first solo on a harvard. What a novelty!
Where'd you do that and how much was the hourly rate? I was surprised to hear that you could learn on that ab initio as it's quite advanced. By the way I've never heard one of them referred to as an snj before: only Harvards and AT6 Texans.