I would say that overall modern versions of photoshop do feel faster than older ones.
Of course photoshop is intended for professional designers with reasonably high end computers, it was never intended for the use case of somebody using a netbook to touch up a few photos as there are other programs for that.
As technology has improved people will expect more from designers so they need more powerful tools optimised for working with large file sizes etc so Adobe are going to expend more effort maximising performance on higher end modern workstations then they are making sure it loads quickly on a five year old netbook.
Just because every teenager wants to use pirate CS4 to tack together a logo for their band does not mean that is what adobe should optimise for.
Of course photoshop is intended for professional designers with reasonably high end computers, it was never intended for the use case of somebody using a netbook to touch up a few photos as there are other programs for that.
As technology has improved people will expect more from designers so they need more powerful tools optimised for working with large file sizes etc so Adobe are going to expend more effort maximising performance on higher end modern workstations then they are making sure it loads quickly on a five year old netbook.
Just because every teenager wants to use pirate CS4 to tack together a logo for their band does not mean that is what adobe should optimise for.