I'm with you! I still think it's time for you to get an M2 Pro! Or, at the least, a complete wipe and refresh of your existing Mac. With my Windows machines, a fairly normal practice was the "new drive, fresh install" every few years. It kept the PC running well, the old drive was a great "full backup", and let me do any upgrades at the time (memory, peripherals, or new video card). With computers so good these days, I realized I didn't need to upgrade anything anymore, but the OS bloat eventually got me doing the new drive & fresh install just to get back to full speed again.