I don't compare a hot-dog to a pile of dog poo and say "it's good food".

Then what is your definition of lightweight? A command line chat app?

slow to load up

literally loads within 3s

long sync times

maybe if you didn't open it for a year yes, otherwise it's in the sub-second area

high battery drain for mobile users

Mine is <1% for the last day. If you don't setup proper push messaging which then requires the app to constantly wake up - yeah than it might be a problem.

room concept, as opposed to contact chats

How exactly is this a problem?

electron app sucks

Teams is also using Electron Microslop Edition

options way too hard to find at times (like how to add existing rooms to a space)

Just go into the settings and you will find 99%

Moving a room to a space has nothing to do with options and is a very uncommon task.

no online/offline status of contacts

ok guess you last used Element 5+ years ago?

• https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3026
• https://spec.matrix.org/v1.3/client-server-api/#presence
• https://patrick.cloke.us/posts/2023/12/15/matrix-presence/

trust model with device verification is unintuitive for non-techie users

Yeah e.g. Whatsapp and Signal have the exact same problems expect when you keep some (sometimes not encrypted) backup somewhere.