[G2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jonstrong:
Thus has got to be one of the stranger discussions on XDA. Lots of contributors, a lot of disagreement about other people's experiences - which is just plain silly, people who experience issues insisting that others also have these issues - but just don't know it. Finally, there's a lot of talk about "lagging" when scrolling through web pages and online apps like Tapatalk - perhaps the worst way to determine that a phone / OS combo has performance issues.

Last item first: "lag" in a web browser can occur from a wide variety of reasons, such as user LAN, network connection, network congestion, other running local apps, server side issues such as traffic...and also the way the page is coded: is it designed to display incrementally or prepare and send the whole formatted page? Apps like Tapatalk "lag" because they pull and format content incrementally and a fast swipe down may invoke several server side data reads with a visible pause at each.

Layer on top of this the various content caching and distribution networks like Akamai, and you really confuse the issue.

Bloatware certainly slows things down, but you don't necessarily need a custom ROM to get past this. You can use Android's built in ability to disable the vast majority of bloatware apps without even having to root the phone. On a phone like the G2, the "downside" of having disabled apps occupying memory is negligible and the stock launcher lets you selectively hide apps. So...except for perhaps one or two apps, you can easily disable and hide bloatware so that it truly has no impact on performance - stock, unrooted. Also... With most of the G2 variants, you can turn off thermal throttling without having to root, addressing what some gamers experience as lag.

I've been in IT for decades - architect, dev, CTO, CIO. I've been using cellphones for 22 years, and have been unlocking, rooting and modding them for about 5 years. I've got some idea what I'm talking about. I can't comment about gaming performance, but for all other normal use, this is the fastest, smoothest phone I've used or owned, period. I also can't account for other's configurations and background apps, but my G2 is essentially lag free (really - not my poor limited perception).

Kitkat will improve things, and if we're allowed ART, we should see an even greater improvement (ART does wondrous things for a Galaxy Nexus).

As many tweaks, mods and custom ROMs I've used over the years, and as much as I appreciate the efforts of the Devs here, I'm not entirely convinced that a generic custom ROM will perform as well, no less better, than a ROM and kernel tweaked specifically for this hardware (I know, let the flames begin). My guess is that the best will be those based, to the extent possible, on the stock LG version - tweaked and modded from there. But that's just speculation.

Some feel obligated to find "issues" with new leading edge products. Pretty consistent pattern if you check many of the product specific forums. Also consistently, people who don't experience these issues are frequently told that they just don't get it, and simply don't recognize that they have such problems with their phones.

No doubt this will piss off a number of posters here. So be it...not my intention. I just find it irritating to see the "issue police" bashing those who don't experience problems and insisting, in effect that they're just too ignorant to know how bad their current config and phone really are.

I'm all for research, experimentation, customization, tweaking. But it also helps if folks will respect other's perception and experiences, and base claims of "issues" and "better performance" on objectively demonstrable metrics, rather than folklore and condescending comments to those who disagree and actually enjoy their new purchases.