I have an ancient Windows 98 computer which I used to use at my grandparents' home until a few years ago. All the problems you mentioned did exist. However, the machine still felt more responsive than today's laptops. Something being objectively slow is very different from it feeling slow when you use it. As an example, I never had Word autosave turned on. It was always explicit (even if this meant I'd usually lose what I was working on when the computer lost power)
I have an ancient Windows 98 computer which I used to use at my grandparents' home until a few years ago. All the problems you mentioned did exist. However, the machine still felt more responsive than today's laptops. Something being objectively slow is very different from it feeling slow when you use it. As an example, I never had Word autosave turned on. It was always explicit (even if this meant I'd usually lose what I was working on when the computer lost power)