I remember that yes, expensive operations could take a while, but the interface was much faster than my M1 Max Studio for the sole reson you actually do not have to wait for animations.

And not just for the reasons that animations were sparse, they also never blocked input, so for example if you could see where a new element would appear you could click there DURING the animation and start eg typing and no input would be lost meaning that apps you used every day and became accustomed to would just zip past at light speed because there were no do-wait do-wait pipeline.