Unusuable Remove Tool (?)

I have been using the remove tool for general clean up for months now. But since the update for PS CC 2026 it is borderline unusuable. I haven’t read much about it on here, so I though I’d ask if this is an actual but or a simple case of “ens***ification.

Ever since the 2026 update I can no longer replace details in snow or sand textures for example because the resulting textures either rendered by the AI or in Photoshop itself do no longer look like the neighbouring textures but patchy, blurry and simply unusable. It doesn’t matter whether I set AI to auto, on or off. Results look like from 2010’s patch tool basically, neither texture, nor color or luminosity match the general area. 

On top of that for about two months now the tool has become incredibly slow for whatever reason and since I do have a 300mbit fiber conection I doubt it is the internet needed for the transfer of the image data as has been hinted at here on the forums recently.

I then tried to simply mark the areas I would like to edit and de selected the option to replace after each brush stroke to save time, because I can’t wait 20 seconds after removing an area of 50x50 pixels (or around that ball pack) each time. That is simply not practical. Doing that and then waiting for a minute or longer for 5-10 minute changes (dust spots, a leaf or twig) does simply result in an error message of the program telling me there is no internet connection and only doing the first 2-3 edits I made. 

Basically I can’t use the tool anymore because for larger areas (like tracks in the snow or sand) it’s no longer funtional due to the ugly texture result and for minor details in larger number I can’t use it anymore because of the snail’s pace. Anyone have recommendations on how to fix this, or is this simply how Adobe runs things now - giving people a good tool and then making it worse?