A question to ES community users (response time) + research

Hello everybody,

May i ask You a question? Is the ES response time is OK with You?
My Dashboard is loading up in about 2+s without k2 in arround 1.50s
It's driving me nuts. I did so many tests and research with a lot of server side configuration and even on different servers, but with no luck. What is Your response time?

My research:
Freshly new install ES 1.36 on fresh joomla 3.3.4 with everything stock on protostar template.
Response time arround 760ms pic

Enabled ES Log in module and logged in
Response time arround 950ms pic

Enabling Online users module
Response time no change

Enabling ES Menu module
Response time - no big change

1 stream item
Response time arround 1s pic

10 strem items
Response time arround 1.20s pic

Created a group, one album and enabled some apps + post few more stream items
Response time arround 1.30s pic

Assigned a few badges to test user
Response time arround 1.50s pic

Then i installed a k2 module which incrased the response up to2+s. K2 is must have app and very powerful is there any way to get it friendly with ES?

At the end, without k2 plugins enabled, we get a 1.5s of response time to load a page with one user and few stream items.
This is really bad indicator to get a few items from DB.
For example if i will launch a community with response time up to 2s, most of users will just not use it.
What's the point to use such a laggy site.

Maybe its time to optimize sql queries, DB or implement some javascript, change the code to get content load faster? For example, if we move trough Me & friends and Everyone, content loads up blazing fast, it's maybe preloaded before i don't know i just can guess because I not a programmer.

Maybe there is some apache modules, caches, or other tools to optimize this issue?
Maybe someone can share own experience in this case to optimize response time?
ES is a really powerful platform with tons of features, but it needs to be optimized to respond faster.

I just want to know other people opinion in this case.
I supported and i will support ES community for it's great features, only together we can make it better.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,
Steve