I normally do not share my past struggles, but this topic deserves it. What to do when you lose hope with Unity UI? I still remember that weekend, about five years ago... I spent the entire weekend ...
You spend an infinite amount of time optimizing your Unity UI. But, all it takes to really screw up performance is a sneaky modification on a tiny attribute of an almost invisible Canvas UI element.
Once upon a time, Unity promised to overhaul the way developers would build user interfaces in their Unity-powered games. This was roughly around the time man discovered fire*. [* In non-snark time, ...