"Anti-Design" is killing my After Effects playback - How are you guys optimizing Gen Z aesthetics?

Lately, more and more clients are asking for that raw Gen Z visual language, Y2K brutalism, heavy grain, chaotic collage work, chromatic aberration, and stacked layer styles. Visually, it looks sick. Technical-wise? It’s turning my After Effects timeline into a complete slideshow.

When you're dealing with 50+ layers of textures, noise maps, and complex typography in Photoshop, what’s your go-to strategy before sending it to AE? Are you flattening/baking grunge textures into single assets, or keeping everything live and praying to the RAM cache gods?

Would love to know how you guys balance keeping that unpolished, edgy look without completely destroying your render times or handoff structure.