I can swap sims in about 30 seconds. With eSim I need to ask my carrier for a new eSim registration code to be generated which takes 48 hours. It's insane and I have no idea why we agreed to this standard.
Sounds like an issue with your carrier rather than the eSIM standard. I recently went to Europe and was able to buy a cheap data eSIM (1GB for £2) and activate it in the airport basically instantly.
With SIMs I would have had to order it through the post like a week in advance, and there's no way I would have gotten that price.
I swap SIMs every couple of years, so a delay of 48h is well within the scope of planning for such an event. Additionally, I happened to do an eSIM swap today and it took about an hour.
For some use cases it's more convenient than a physical card, for some use cases (or implementations) it's less convenient. That doesn't make it insane.
With SIMs I would have had to order it through the post like a week in advance, and there's no way I would have gotten that price.
eSIMs are amazingly convenient for travelling: https://esimdb.com/