I appreciate your feedback. I've been on gmail since 2006 or so with lots of labels, but only ever about 500-1000 messages at any given time.

I was trying various searches today, with the from:, to: operators, as well various keywords and the longest lag I had was a little over 2 seconds. I've heard people complain about it, but never to the tune of 20 seconds. I genuinely thought it was exaggerated for effect in the FA.