I've always had sub second startup times. With text rendered within the first 1.5-2 at most. Time to "Actual interactivity" usually takes around 3-5 seconds, but that's mostly due to my plugins. I could start typing per-se, just not in Vim mode.
I mostly leave the editor permanently open on the project I'm working on, so I guess I don't really notice it much either way. And using the integrated terminal to change one dir back and switch to another project, then opening it with code . is a pretty good flow so I don't feel stifled in that sense either.
> I mostly leave the editor permanently open on the project I'm working on
I leave Visual Studio permanently open, but I use sublime for quick edits/viewing/changes (e.g. opening a remote file on perforce, or modifying a config file), so even 2 seconds to interactivity is just too long.
I mostly leave the editor permanently open on the project I'm working on, so I guess I don't really notice it much either way. And using the integrated terminal to change one dir back and switch to another project, then opening it with code . is a pretty good flow so I don't feel stifled in that sense either.