That's a very dated view of PHP. Modern PHP is far "cooler" than it was a few years ago. Just look at the entire https://laravel.com ecosystem — the most starred web framework on all of GitHub, across all languages, is Laravel.
It's refreshing (as far as PHP goes) and worth checking out with an open mind. Performance on the other hand, that take a little more work.
I'm guessing your benchmarks are using native php-fpm and not through docker on your MBP?
I'm not convinced it's the best for building e-commerce sites and whatever people are piggy-backing on top of WordPress nowadays.