Why is Photoshop still so slow??

No, the working layered files are up in the gigabyte range, but the final flattened files are usually only a few hundred megs.

I posted a screen cap of my Activity Monitor memory pressure graphs earlier in this post. Yes, the graphs go into the reds across all 12 cores.

It blows my mind that these are supposed to be the best personal computers out there. They are industry standard in creative fields, as is Photoshop. All they seem do it bloat the software and hardware with unnecessary features while ignoring basic power and performance. I did my due diligence when I bought this computer; I went to a Mac store and talked to a sales person, telling him exactly what kind of work I do and the size of files I work with, how disappointed I was with the iMac, and I was assured beyond any doubt that this machine would be more than powerful enough. I feel duped.

I have 19,000 photos but don't have Photos open usually, and photoanalysisd is using 0% of the CPU.

Thanks for that link. I looked over it all and I've got all the settings right for what I'm doing, and performance is still lacklustre.

It's incredibly frustrating, and not the first time I feel like I've been screwed over my Mac and/or Adobe.

No I'm not. I work on a single 27" monitor.

The only things plugged into my computer are a Wacom Tablet, a monitor, a Qi charger for my phone, and an external hard drive.