It feels like Ansible becomes slower with each release? Is it true?

This is an answer. We are using Ansible to measure Ansible's performance. There are some tests in place. Just hit start.sh and you will get some numbers.

My numbers:

Test 1
Subject: Testing template performance
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v1.9.6 0:06.72
v2.0.2 0:13.45
v2.1.3 0:20.66
v2.2.0 0:20.91

Test 2
Subject: Testing big stack of variables
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v1.9.6 0:07.20
v2.0.2 0:14.29
v2.1.3 0:21.59
v2.2.0 0:21.57

Test 3
Subject: Testing shell execution with register
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v1.9.6 0:06.64
v2.0.2 0:08.31
v2.1.3 0:12.40
v2.2.0 0:11.53