I still remember Win 3.1 as being incredibly fast UI wise (once loaded), a feeling that propagated until around the Win7 era. As soon as this newer, non win32 stuff started happening in Windows, I lost that feeling. I have it again on Linux/Wayland, where native GTK controls are just such a joy to use.

And yeah - even if there was lag or slowness I don't recall, imagine those systems on today's hardware. I recently used a WinXP on fast hardware, and by god was that thing responsive, lean and fast.