Zardnaar
Legend
Fair call 5e is faster than 4e and probably 3e (it's been so long, I cant rem now how long 3e combat took)
3E combat was generally similar to 5E except when to many bufs entered the equation or maybe Druids. We played it at a decent clip as we would have all the relevant info (+ to hit before and after buffs) laid out. We generally did not go to far down the powergaming role in 3E though- lots of fighters used, bards, skill monkey. The worst builds I saw IRL were a Shadow Adept, Incantrix and a persistent spell cleric build.
Worst example I could think of was a Druid player who wanted to read the stats of every monster he could summon each round to get the ideal one. I resolved the issue by telling him to get his own MM which effectively nerfed wildshape or give each PC 1 minute of real time to decide their actions.