Takes some seconds in my experience. And about 10 in total for both of my external displays to be displaying useful stuff. Definitely annoying.

The displays always seem to be the challenge.

With my Mac Pro, as soon as I wake it, I can see the LED on my monitors are 'alive', but it still takes that same 10s or so to be displaying data.

Also on macOS, if you have an always-on VPN, that can absolutely cause wake time challenges.

It's pretty instantaneous already.

With two external displays plugged in, 10-15 seconds, sometimes more. Without any, 1-2 seconds.

By time I've lifted my screen in to position it's ready for me to log in. It's very quick. I've never felt held up by it.

I genuinely would love some info or statistics on this. AFAIC remember, laptops wake from sleep almost instantly to the lock screen. Is it a longer wait if one wakes directly to their desktop?

I'm with you in not fully understanding the benefit. Maybe this is a technology that is hard to imagine, but is difficult to go back from (60hz, Retina displays).

I think there's a conceptual difference. Macbooks wake up after a brief pause of a second or two; phones act like they never went to sleep. There's this perception of locking your phone being a zero-cost thing, which isn't quite true of putting your laptop to sleep. I assume this is the gap they're talking about bridging.