VSCode is super laggy even on a $4000 MBP. Compared to something like IntelliJ sure, but that's a super low bar on responsiveness.
VSCode with no extensions is very fast and light. VSCode with 30 extensions you've accumulated? Not so much.
I think that's why you see such conflicting experiences - people have different extensions.
I absolutely love vscode and think all of the people complaining about it being sluggish are ridiculous, but the cpp extensions really are genuinely annoying.
Actually I think Rust analyser had a "smart enter" feature that worked in a similar way and was similarly slow.
Basically if an extension overrides typing then it's going to be slow.