Hi there...after the latest updates my programs wouldn't start and I couldn't even turn off the PC(damn GNOME...) so I stopped it manually and after the start for me it seems faster and more responsive...before I restarted it I could tell that even the fonts were different- I saw the latest blog post and assume it was something to do with the new options...
So it may be just first impression, but for the first time in my life I had positive feelings about GNOME...well I still hate it and specially after I know it's the biggest, slowest and buggiest of them all(first tough it was developed by amateurs for free, but later realized how big support from corporations it has), I still can't stand how when scrolling with mouse over default applications it takes so so long to only change from one thing to the other and while clicking is faster, it's still so slow...
To end it up this feels like a good update for me- I had the same feelings a month or two ago when software center started to load images of the software for the first time 
Did Solus got faster and/or changed the appearance after the latest updates?
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Emperor Gentle reminder to reboot after large updates. You end up with mismatches between what's on disk and what's in RAM. Generally not too much of a problem, but definitely gets worse if your running software is effective.
Believe it or not, Budgie and MATE also share a fair bit of code with GNOME (especially GTK) so you can expect to see improvements across the board for them and other GTK applications.
Edit: And the images in the Software Center were mainly just us needing to rebuild our AppStream data to match the new format.
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DataDrake Yes everything except KDE and Xfce is basically a GNOME one way or another...I would say Budgie(which I use) is what many people call "GNOME done right"
I know that the bugs are due to GNOME and not you, also put the info about images is SC, because the system is good enough in my opinion so for me it's more important for everything to work as expected and be fast instead of adding new features or updates(well if it's for GIMP or Darktable, then they are more important) 
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kyrios I kind of search for mainstream DE, not Enlightenment, Moksha or other boutique ones.
It seems like it's, but I can deffinitely tell going from GNOME based system to Xfce- which is the no bullshit distro It is utilitarian, simple and the things it's made to do- it does them very well. When you add or change the appearance RAM doesn't just fill up. For me it's a different experience, and being GTK+ based makes it the only "real" alternative to KDE.