It might sound a bit arcane, but I attribute a lot of it to REM sleep. When I quit, I had crazy dreams every night, often nightmares. But frankly, I had dug myself into a pretty deep hole in the real world. These nightmares and unpleasant dreams became much less frequent over time, and I still dream almost every night. When I was smoking every day, I didn’t notice this. I don’t notice that was waking up foggy, it was nothing compared to a hangover or a night with little sleep. But now it’s clear. I feel like I have an entire dimension of sharpness and control I was missing and I’m grateful for that.
Overall depends what your goals are, not everybody constantly strives to be at their sharpest point, a bit of chill isn't bad from time to time. I think the biggest problem with MJ is that for most folks the best setup would be consuming from time to time, ie 1x a week. But its easy to slip into more frequent usage, where drawbacks become bigger and benefits smaller.