I used some Vim IDE plugins and I assume the bottleneck was there.
The problem is without some IDE-like features, I don't have a need for a text editor. Micro supports LSP servers by default and that gets me pretty far, before jumping to Kate or a real IDE.
The question is which plugins you used. My neovim configuration gives me "IDE-like features", yet it's noticeably faster than VS Code and others. Also, neovim has native support for LSP too.
The problem is without some IDE-like features, I don't have a need for a text editor. Micro supports LSP servers by default and that gets me pretty far, before jumping to Kate or a real IDE.