One of the main reasons I don't use iOS or macOS anymore is because of the animations. Even very, very short animations make the whole experience excruciating for me. It feels slow and unresponsive.
One reason I moved from Android to Windows phone was because of the massively unpredictable performance (lag due to background stuff happening).
One reason I moved from Windows phone was the massive delay in switching apps.
Now on iPhone the animations are annoying, yes, but they are at least consistent in length, meaning I expect them and know how long to take a (tiny) pause. I know some work is happening that’s being disguised and that’s why they can’t (all) be turned off.
When I had a choice, I used Fedora + XFCE for a long time, then Xubuntu. I've been on Windows 10 since it came out, and it's been incredibly liberating not to constantly have to think about my OS and Google my way through its quirks and bugs.
It also takes about 20 seconds to disable all animations in Windows, which makes it feel as snappy as XFCE (even on my 5-year-old machine).
For what I do now (Office, email, programming using IDE hooked into Docker containers), it really doesn't hinder me to be on a non-*nix OS.