Maybe it's been a while since you've used a good native app. Sometimes we forget just how fast computers can be without any of the mountains of abstractions that we've piled on.
Possibly. I guess the "fastest" program I use on a daily basis is Sublime Text, which is native on multiple platforms. I never have a slowdown, even on very large files. It instantly responds to keyboard input, which is a must in a text editor. Basically, it's perfect (for my definition of perfect).
I've seen people say things like "Safari is much faster than Chrome" but I don't really see it. Sure, it can seem a bit quicker on some sites but most of the time I don't really notice it. I do notice things like CPU and energy usage between those two browsers, but I'm mostly plugged into power all day anyway so it doesn't make any practical difference which one I use. Perhaps when I get a new M1 machine (ie. 2021 16" MBP!!) I'll feel differently. Perhaps.
