It is a problem. The engineering tradeoffs have to be done at each level of the stack. And as progressively more layers of the stack make the trade off away from speed the effects compound.

Nothing about a cross-platform UI requires that it not be snappy. Or that Electron is the best option possible.

Did VSCode do a good job with the options available? Maybe, maybe not. But the options is where I think we should focus.

Having to trade off between two bad options means you’ve already lost.