Tested small notifications number - Zero difference. Exactly the same, so thats not it.

The number of entries per page? Its already low. 12 per page.

This is an architectural problem that 100% needs developer input. The problem here is that I am operating at scale, with a pretty large data set. Even with reasonable settings, its still slow. I would also argue - if there WAS something wrong with the current settings, that the default "out of the box" values would need tuning to help new users. I have intentionally avoided changing very much to allow elimination of custom setup as a contributing factor