Your hardware was average over a decade ago. Today you can buy 6c/12t CPUs that boost to 3.6GHz for less than $200. That's average! They make your CPU look like something from the dark ages. Today's high end CPUs have 12c/24t or more!

The block chain is a large amount of data, you can't just hand wave that away. You are going to need semi-decent hardware if you want to parse that data without difficulty. That is simply a fact.

Armory is wallet software which doesn't rely on outside sources for the block chain. In order to take advantage of that kind of security, there are certain trade-offs that need to be made. One of them is having a relatively decent computer.

Armory is also not for the "average user". It's for the advanced user who is comfortable with these programs and willing to run them on appropriate hardware, and willing to do some troubleshooting to get things to work. When operations takes ten times longer to complete due to ancient hardware, it's going to make troubleshooting settings that much more painful.

Basically, if you want a smooth experience with Bitcoin Core/Armory, you will want at the very least a 4c/8t CPU that boosts somewhere in the 4Ghz range and at least a SATA SSD (along with 4-8GB of RAM). SSD really can't be understated here. Many computers now use a m.2 drive which makes SATA SSD look silly. I haven't touched a HDD in 10 years. These systems aren't expensive. You can have a used system that will breeze through this for a couple hundred bucks.

I am no developer. I'm basically software illiterate. Linux is like a foreign language to me. I know hardware because I've custom built my PCs for years. I have no issues what-so-ever running Armory. In seven years I've never had it fail on me. As long as you have some semi-decent hardware, and you aren't using some crazy configuration, Bitcoin Core and Armory will simply work.