Yes, it's all quite aweful anymore. Every gain that is made in speed is coupled with 10 times more eye candy, so the end result is a machine that feels like it always stays relatively the same speed.
I am convinced some of these companies and agencies are in kahoots with each other simply to sell you stuff you don't really need.
And why does resizing a browser window alomst always bring my 2Ghz PPC to it's knees? It's almost sad really. You would think this would be snappy, but it is quite the opposite.