This became way better since AC 20 (AFIR) (I had some project that was very slow because of many associative labels in 19…while I opened it by accident in newer version it worked better)
To check just open the project for testing even without library migration in 22 – maybe that would be the argument for migrating up at least the latest projects.
(I know the drawbacks in GDL, but there are also good points there)
Piotr