I'd be inclined to agree with you if it were just me or one machine, but these are characteristics that I'd use to describe Visual Studio across a number of machines, projects and teams over several years.
Use a fast machine. Do not develop in a VM. Do not use a mechanical hard drive. Have at least 8GB of ram. Absolutely do not have any kind of on-access antivirus scan enabled for project output/intermediate dirs or GAC.
I find a 100project C# solution (200mb deploy) to be perfectly snappy when using & fast to build. There are and have been zillions of annoyances with VS but perf hasn't been one since I set my machine up properly (in the office most of the developers complaining about build perf could cut 75% or more just by excluding certain dirs from AV scan).
This is great dogma for people that control their work environment, but keep in mind that not everyone has that luxury. Hardware upgrade cycles and/or upgrade budgets can prevent people from working on the hardware they'd like, group policy can prevent scoping down AV settings, job role may require frequently hopping between OSX/Windows, etc.
Well, it's fairly easy to keep developers happy. Good hardware and coffee is so cheap compared to finding new developers...
I'd be as upset by a group policy demanding I scan my VS intermediate dirs on access as I would be by a no-chairs policy at the office. It's a dealbreaker.
I'd be inclined to agree with you if it were just me or one machine, but these are characteristics that I'd use to describe Visual Studio across a number of machines, projects and teams over several years.