This is a very passionate reply that does not answer the question or address it with numbers or any technical information.

that there is absolutely zero bloat shipped with the tool

But you're opening a web browser and calling it "hyper fast". Why not just set windows to open a web browser?

we all unanimously agreed to gradually shift Electro away from WebView2 and towards a custom-built 2D renderer for truly native "hyperfast" performance :)

Gradually shift away? Custom built 2D 'renderer' ? What are you even talking about here? Just open a window and copy pixels into it. Resize the image using a 2.2 gauss kernel. This stuff was solved decades ago.

A win32 API opens instantly, FLTK opens instantly (and has a jpeg library built in), irfan and xv open instantly.

The final decision was to "just ship it" and see how the community reacts.

The combination of calling your own software "hyperfast" with no actual numbers or comparisons is pretty egregious and people were pretty easy on you after claims like that.