The unconfirmed transaction pool is getting bigger and confirmations much slower than about one year ago. It is not "broken" now, but will be soon if we don't do anything.
Do you have stats on that, or is it anecdotal?
It's based on my personal experience over the 2 years I have been using bitcoin. I do not measure "speed" based on minutes and hours. My impression is based on how many blocks have passed before transactions are confirmed (with a standard 0.0001 btc fee), and the number of unconfirmed transactions in the pool when confirmations are "slow".