Works fine for me too. I have never had any lag time with either the 1st gen or 2nd gen ATV remotes.
I upgraded to a newer sound bar a few months ago and I noticed that instead of jumping 2 volume increments up or down every time I pressed the Vol Up or Vol Down buttons, it was using a single increment. It should have been using a single increment before, but for some reason it didn't. So perhaps the issue was with the sound bar. So before you blame Apple, at least explore the possibility that the fault is with the sound bar or TV speakers (which ever you use).