I feel like Monterey is making better use of the new CPUs which is probably why everything is faster starting from the bootup time to launching apps and overall snappiness of the entire OS.
Yes, however, all my MacBook Pro's (as of now) are Intel based and are still much, much faster than the same MBP's running macOS Big Sur!
I was busy on launch day, and even though I was able to get an order in for a new 16" MacBook Pro with M1 Max with 10-core CPU/32-core GPU as well as 400GB/s memory bandwidth, I will not be getting it until late November...which sucks, but that is on me.
However, as I said earlier, these Intel MBP's are running amazingly fast, even my 13" Early-2015 MacBook Pro. Also, I have noticed that they are not running near as hot as they were on macOS Big Sur. That could be due to me always fresh-installing the new version of macOS every year.
We will see how these Intel models continue running as the year goes on, and more updates to Monterey are released. This feels like a very "Snow Leopard" type release.
Edit: I am a firm believer in fresh installs each year. I know there is a debate every year on these very forums about if they really do anything, or if you would see the same speed increase if you would just upgrade over the previous version of macOS. I think a fresh install is the way to go for sure.