I'm curious, how long does it take in your machine(s) for your scripts to get ready to start working?
Put something like this at the beginning of some scripts and share the results.
<SPAN class="keyword token">from</SPAN> timeit <SPAN class="keyword token">import</SPAN> default_timer <SPAN class="keyword token">as</SPAN> timer
start <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> timer<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>
<SPAN class="keyword token">from</SPAN> datetime <SPAN class="keyword token">import</SPAN> datetime<SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> timedelta
<SPAN class="keyword token">print</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="string token">'=== {}'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>format<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>datetime<SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>now<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>
start_arc <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> timer<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>
<SPAN class="keyword token">import</SPAN> arcpy
done_arc <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> timer<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN> <SPAN class="operator token">-</SPAN> start_arc
<SPAN class="keyword token">print</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="string token">'--- import arcpy overhead: {}'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>format<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>timedelta<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>seconds<SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN>done_arc<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>
<SPAN class="comment token">#import os, math, ...</SPAN>
<SPAN class="comment token">#carry on with your stuff</SPAN>
elapsed_time <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> timedelta<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>seconds<SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN>timer<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN> <SPAN class="operator token">-</SPAN> start<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>
<SPAN class="comment token"># get timer seconds and convert to hh:mm:ss</SPAN>
<SPAN class="keyword token">print</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="string token">'=== Total Elapsed Time: {}'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>format<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>elapsed_time<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>After about a week and perhaps 30 trials in various circumstances the fastest time I've ever seen is 7.8 seconds, the slowest is 10.5, and the median is ~8.5.
(updated code to run in py 2.7 and 3.6+)