The instance itself is actually running in Hetzners server hall in Oregon, and it's been extreamly reliable. Not a single issue with them since we started this instance. :)
Now we will store images on s3, which means all image loadings will be from s3 to you users directly, and that means the instance doesn't even have to send you any images anymore - just the link to them on s3. So that will reduce load on the instance and help to make it even faster.
I'm very curious myself how this will be after the migration. Excited for it. :)
Probably just a matter of prioritization I guess. The dev team for Lemmy have a lot on their plate now. I looked at the github repo and it's a lot of issues... As with any big popular project.
But from what I've read, I think it's scheduled for Lemmy 0.19 in about a month...