Yes. My first computers TRS-80 through to Amiga had massive advancements in capability, and while the memory increased with each step it was the gain in power that drove upgrades. Since then the pressure to upgrade has been primarily memory. CPU has not really been an issue because the memory pressure forces an upgrade by virtue of new memory module architecture necessitating a new motherboard.
The machines I am currently using perform poorly because they do not have enough memory. I'm in the saving-for-a-new-machine phase, suffering poor performance on computers with more than adequate CPU power.
It must be said though, the Window Manager probably plays a very small part of that load. While browsers take a major single chunk. Much of the drain comes from the accumulation of everything. So many apps have a philosopy that "an extra 20(0) meg doesn't matter when you have gigabytes" that eventually they combine to actually eat up your gigabytes.
The machines I am currently using perform poorly because they do not have enough memory. I'm in the saving-for-a-new-machine phase, suffering poor performance on computers with more than adequate CPU power.
It must be said though, the Window Manager probably plays a very small part of that load. While browsers take a major single chunk. Much of the drain comes from the accumulation of everything. So many apps have a philosopy that "an extra 20(0) meg doesn't matter when you have gigabytes" that eventually they combine to actually eat up your gigabytes.