I totally I agree and allow me to dive into a bit of a rabbit hole to share my thoughts. I don't play anymore, but 20 years of playing Runescape and many, many other games taught me just that. One day, I stumbled upon this game, this game of true focus, Super Hexagon.
No matter which setup, bad input lag or no, big screen or on laptop, I seemed to struggle at the same rate. At the time, I thought I needed to enter a gamer mode.
Now, years later, I play Splinterlands for profit and I'm an amateur free soloist and rock climber, among other things. I see that it's all the same.
On the rocks, I climb best when I'm with my brother, feeling comfortable in my ability and having a good time rather than overfocusing on technique or raw information. A state of bliss and focus, some sort of meditative state I'd say. It's like if you've ever been to a friend's house, picked up a controller, and you are worse because it's not your setup. Their controller could very well be superior to yours (my case most of the time as a kid) but you learn to adapt to and master your craft with these imperfections.
Ages 14-17, my prime years of gaming, we had terrible internet. On League of Legends, we'd have 200 ping regularly. We played just fine after a while, doing great actually, and once I moved to better internet, I was suddenly doing terrible. I think performance is really tied to comfort and enjoyment as well. Especially in things like games, which are inherently made for enjoyment, or even things like climbing a cliff with no rope. You don't do that unless you enjoy it, and if you don't, your performance is certainly going to "drop." XD
As an old fan of the main Monster Hunter series, I've always been a gameplay over graphics kind of guy.
I feel I may have went a little out of topic there, but regardless thanks for sharing! TLDR; I agree lol.
You have a great point there. One usually thinks like 'Oh, I surely will be automatically better with this better whatever', but it's usually about enjoyment and how used you are to it. Everything has it's unique quirks, and discovering and mastering them might take some time.
Thanks for your comment!