The iPhone-like speed of waking up from sleep itself is enough to convince many of us to go for the M1 macbooks
I'm with you in not fully understanding the benefit. Maybe this is a technology that is hard to imagine, but is difficult to go back from (60hz, Retina displays).
With my Mac Pro, as soon as I wake it, I can see the LED on my monitors are 'alive', but it still takes that same 10s or so to be displaying data.
Also on macOS, if you have an always-on VPN, that can absolutely cause wake time challenges.