no one cares if it's the protocol or the implementation. it just works worse than x11 on modest hardware

Actually, people that are not hell bent on using x11 do care... That is because the protocol is inherently more efficient than x11, and the compositor matters.

So if you try to run kwin or mutter, there's no doubt they are going to be more demanding than a plain xorg server (but not more than xorg+KDE or xorg+gnome). But if you try to use a compositor made for low hardware like labwc, it's gonna run laps around xorg. And you can even use labwc on lxqt, so you get your familiar desktop environment but with a modern Wayland compositor.

Just try it. Dig up an old intel atom netbook and see if you prefer using xorg or labwc