[tl]

It's a biased viewpoint, but it's not nostalgia. The following all happened to me:

- 486 Packard Bell that I upgraded ram from 4MB -> 12MB as a kid? Win 3.1 went from being slow period to Windows 95 being fast any time I didn't touch disk or CD-ROM.

- ZSNES on Pentium MMX? Zero lag gameplay with time-travel debugging and full memory view.

- DOS running on a Pentium 4 to support legacy software? Nearly instant everything, especially power on -> usable machine.

You'll notice a common thread. It was possible to outrun the demons of sluggishness back then.