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Here is a direct link to the WPMUDEV site builder: http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/introducing-upfront/

(Not affiliated to them. Just spent some time searching for it myself as it is nowhere mentioned on the WPMUDEV website)

Yeah, it's what prompted the creation of Ghost.

I sometimes see people doing more in WordPress than I have yet to get Django to do.

Yeah, I know a startup which 'ingeniously' used Wordpress as their platform, turning it into a 'two sided commerce marketplace'.

I'm not sure if it was brilliance or stupidity.

Question is, how is their business model performing? Has WP hurt or helped that? In that end, that is really what matters.

Slow front-end templating is definitely a major problem for many WordPress installs. Varnish can work some magic, as can a little Cloudflare, but agreed: WP performance must be engineered.

Varnish does go a long way, on the HTTP side combining and minifying scripts helps a lot too. I think the heavy load is almost the nature of the system, but there are some ways to alleviate the pain!