I had high end Android devices up to Android 7 and still experienced lagging and stuttering. It was clear there were optimisation issues with the software that couldn’t be solved by throwing hardware at.
You know what? You’re right. It sticks out like a sore thumb because it’s so different from my normal experience. I’m used to some 3rd party apps being terrible but not the OS itself.
(Never used Android for more than 5 minutes, can’t comment there)