I know there are situations where a "real" desktop OS is helpful, but at the same time it's remarkable to me how well my 2016 iPad Pro holds up with only 2 GB of RAM.

The 2015 model actually had 4 GB, but that was a 12.9" screen and substantially pricier.

They stuck with the same 4 GB in 2018's redesign unless you buy the very expensive 1TB storage option, in which case it's silently bumped up to 6 GB. Apple oddly doesn't even advertise that difference, it only came out through benchmarking.

Hopefully the 2020 refresh bumps it up to 8 GB which I think would future proof new devices for 5+ years of solid performance.

Honestly, they just need to get their flash storage supply chain under control, and configure swap memory support for iOS. Or perhaps add a microSD port and let the device swap to a (disposable) microSD card. It's just preposterous that RAM-constrained mobile devices still can't use virtual memory (something that has been known since the 1960s) because of their bottom-of-the-barrel eMMC storage.

At least it puts a limit on how much RAM something can use. VM is always extremely slow, and once your RAM is full performance slows to a crawl...

I thought apple devices used nvme storage now?

Electron apps I am forced to use are probably the problem. I love vscode and would support other similar electron apps but people are using electron without even a need for it and locking down features that you can implement with some work for the browsers.

They are hostile too. Some of them won't let me build my own client or use a third party one.

The current standard machine sets the available features and the optimization level in stone, not the machine from 10 years ago.