Man this is the same thing that happened to me with a cheap table saw, you suffer through the hand tool version forever then one day a cheap power tool shows up and you're like why did I wait so long. The motor bogging thing is just part of the deal with the budget stuff, you learn to let the belt do the work instead of your arms. Tbh you'll probably ride that thing for a year or two before the tracking and the bogging get old enough to bother you.

Saw a tech on YouTube say airflow first every time.

Doubt the duck all you want but you're basically just tricking yourself into slowing down, which is the real fix, and the duck gets credit for something your own brain did. Hearing code out loud forces a different part of your brain to process it than reading silently, so it feels like magic when it's just your ears catching what your eyes skipped. Take away the duck and you'd get the same result talking to a wall, a spoon, or an empty chair, so the toy is a prop, not a tool.