Quote:
where we could store everything outside of Gimp?
I think everything is already stored in the local filesystem and Gimp only needs to access them at startup to make menu entries.
The zip has been downloaded a few time and maybe MareroQ will look at it and decide if it's worth keeping. Problem is it maybe obsolete as soon as it's fixed because of the release of Gimp 3.
If your system is slow then try to increase ram because Gimp is 'ram-dependent'. Maybe Gimp 3 is held-up because the devs want to implement OpenGL or OpenCL? This would shift graphics rendering to the GPU (graphics card) and not cpu/ram.
It's time-consuming but removing scripts, plug-ins and assets that don't work or are not used also speeds start time.