Linux even without telemetry struggles to perform as good as windows.

This is not normal. Even Xubuntu (with snaps and all) brought back a Core Duo (not a Core 2 Duo), which is EOL as of 13 or so years ago now.

Windows 10 was barfing all over itself and the mouse would take a good 20 seconds to make it across the screen. With Linux you wouldn't be able to tell the system was older than a couple years. Sure, programs took a bit extra to load, but once they did it was really smooth. I knew it would be better, but it worked fantastically.

The person using that system has been using it since the beginning of the pandemic to work remotely. I keep asking once in a while to see how it's going and each time they say it's working great. No errors, no issues, no slowdowns, just does its job.