I use DS-4.1-Flash a lot but find it often gets caught up in long thinking runs. The "But wait... Actually... Hmm..." type of thing. Even though the tok/s is good, it stills feels slow because of this. Same with 1017.
I use Opus 5.5 at work and it does this much less (I know, different classes). Maybe it is to be expected of the flash models.
Which claude model are you comparing it to? If you're using fable max obv it's going to be slower, but like sonnet high is both faster and more intelligent
I have both platform.deepseek.com (hooray off-peak pricing) and the $100/m Claude subscription and boy do I find myself mostly using DS-flash pretty much every time.
There's something to be said for the speed with which it gets word done - I take fewer "it's compiling" breaks, and lose my train of thought less frequently. What's crazy is that the speedy work it does is pretty much always correct - which is a reason why I don't feel the need to spin up claude-code and "ask the expert".
This speed & good-work combo is the DS signature IMO