iMacs with 1TB Fusion Drive and 32 (28) GB SSD blade - unbearably slow boot times

You would lose your bet. The HDD and any other part of my almost brand new system is working fine... under Mojave and/or Catalina.

PLEASE read my QUESTION. It am not asking for ANY ADVICE. I have enough knowledge of hard- and software to know what to do. My question is directed to those who have a 1TB Fusion Drive with a 24 or 32 GB SSD blade and have installed Big Sur. I want to know if there is anyone who has boot times that can be called normal (i.e. under 30 to 40 seconds - I'm giving Big Sur a bit of slack as Catalina starts up in 20 seconds...).

Have you read my OP or are you just making publicity for software?

And, because you don't seem to remember: I did post the report on a thread where you yourself acknowledged that there was nothing wrong with anything installed on my system.

Insulting you? Where? How? By criticising your product?

I'm not going to go into a discussion with you because anyone using your product can see for himself what it is doing.

You STILL DO NOT READ what I write. I have not only used Disk Utility to check the HDD. I have other professional software, running on Catalina and older OS versions, and all of them reported absolute no issue whatsoever on the HDD or any other component. If you think I'm lying, come over to my country and check my system yourself.

Now we are getting somewhere... You claim that "other users with similar computers have reported the exact opposite." Can you refer me to them here on the forum? Or did you still not read the specs of my system?!

About my HDD: Can you explain why a failing HDD would be super fast on Catalina and in top condition according to three disk tools?

Can you also please explain why Big Sur booted on my system in 20 seconds right after a clean install, but as soon as Pages, Keynote, and Numbers were installed, its boot time became several minutes, ending up at the very same 4,5 minutes after iMovie, Photoshop and Lightroom were installed?

Logic, my dear Watson, LOGIC!!! Your assumption about my HDD failing is based on nothing but speculation. And all that because I "insulted" your product, stating a fact about it.

My OP does not need an EtreCheck report. It does not ask for help in order to "solve a problem." It asks a very simple question, which you seem not to understand.

I will ask that question now directly to you:

Do you have an iMac with a 1TB Fusion Drive featuring a 24 or 32 GB SSD blade, and if yes, have you been able to use Big Sur on that system without the boot times (from boot chime until apps become responsive) increasing to 4 or 5 minutes? If yes, you can help me. If no, you cannot help me. Especially not by trying to persuade me to run EtreCheck on a system that is no longer having the boot time problem because it was downgraded to Catalina.

Where did I insult anyone? If there is an insult to be found somewhere in this thread, it could be the one that is caused by the fact that you seem to disrespect my original question, although I have taken plenty of time to clearly explain the context of it, by continually giving me advice I don't need anymore because I have gone through all the steps any of you until now have come up with, and more!

I need to hear from the users of the system I describe in my OP, and only from them. I don't need help. I need information, as I have clearly and repeatedly explained in my OP and in my replies here.

Thank you, for your time, and for trying to no longer waste mine by understanding that I am not insulting anyone, but am being polite enough to answer each and every one of you who do not read my OP, or do not understand it.

You keep on assuming things about me, my iMac, and what I know or not know about hard- and software (since 36 years).

Would you please do me a big favour and stop hijacking my thread for your own commercial purposes of selling stuff that I do not need (and many other people neither)? This forum apparently does not give the option to block someone... a pity.

For the sake of other users who would be following this thread, I answer your last message:

1. If you would really be helping, you would not give me any commercial tips but refer me to the users owning an identical (and not "similar" as you said in a previous message) iMac who have been able to install Big Sur and the most essential of apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and iMovie) without boot times going up to 4,5 to 5 minutes. You're not helping me, you're patronising me.
2. I have not been misled by anything on the Internet. I have been posting here about the problem with unacceptably long boot times for at least three months now. Dozens (!), if not hundreds of other users on the Developers forum, have been reporting the very same problem. I have been reporting it to Apple several times (every time after an update of Big Sur). Together with three other users with whom I have corresponded and who have a decent knowledge and many years of experience with Apple hard- and software, we have come to a logical conclusion about how Big Sur is too big to function on iMacs with a 1 TB Fusion Drive featuring a 24 or 32 GB SSD blade. I think this is a very important issue, which concerns a huge number of Apple users. Your "solution" is not a solution but an expensive and unnecessary work-around. I'm refraining from saying more about it...
3. Your alternative explanation (a failing HDD) makes no sense. I have explained why and given logical arguments and proof for that, more than once previously in this thread. You seem to have some sixth sense and know my system better than I do. I have told you why my HDD cannot be the cause of the problem. Not only because I have tested it extensively with professional tools, but also because many other users report the exact same problem on the exact same system showing the exact same boot times after the exact same upgrade. If I would have "lashed out and attacked", I would have been blocked by the Apple bots.
4. The performance of my iMac is excellent! Once again, you do not understand what I have written in my OP and in most of my replies to you. It is excellent, under Catalina and Big Sur! However, there is a huge and unacceptable difference in the respective boot times of both operating systems on iMacs with a 1 TB Fusion Drive and 24 or 32 GB SSD blades. Mine is not even one year old! FWIW: once Big Sur is up and running after almost 5 minutes, everything works smoothly, apart from a number of bugs, which I suspect will be ironed out in the long run.
5. I'm feeling totally fine, thank you. You read too much into my words.
6. Once more: I do not have any problem with my system. Not anymore. Not after downgrading to Catalina. My OP and the only question it contains, is still beyond your comprehension, apparently. I do not need your help. I do not need your advice. I do not need any peripherals to start up any Mac. Actually, if you would know anything more profound about hardware, you would know that booting from and continuously running operating systems from external drives, is a perfect recipe for a big disaster. I only need to hear from those users whom I have clearly described in my OP, even summarising it in the end.
7. It is my choice, indeed, and not yours, to keep my system healthy and safe, and to keep this thread on topic!

I think most people here can make out for themselves who is "actively misleading" others and hijacking a thread to make publicity for his own software. By the way, I was astonished to find out the number of files and folders your software is using to track things and are left behind after uninstalling it.

Does your Fusion Drive feature a 24 or 32 GB SSD blade? If no, your answer to my question is irrelevant. If yes, did Big Sur start up in 30 seconds or less after you reinstalled apps like Numbers, Pages, Keynote, GarageBand and iMovie? My guess is no.

This is not America... meaning that some of us are in Europe, and that here, top spec iMacs were still sold with Fusion Drives until last Autumn. I'm in Greece, and last Spring it wasn't even possible to order, let alone buy in a store, a non-Fusion Drive, fully SSD iMac 27inch 5K. And then I'm not even talking about the price difference, which was something like 700 euro - which is the monthly wage of most people here.

If the "crux" of the matter is that Big Sur works fine on SSD-iMacs, but not on Fusion Drive ones, then Apple's claim that it works on ALL iMacs from 2014 onwards, is incorrect, and we should get a free replacement or refund. That is the law here in Europe.

It is clear that you think that a one-year old top spec iMac like mine, running blazingly fast on Catalina, is "old" and we should "move on" (meaning installing external accessories to simply get Big Sur to start up in a normal way, or simply buying a new iMac). Big Sur is either compatible or incompatible. Until Apple comes up with a solution (and I'm sure there is one), then Big Sur is incompatible with our iMacs and should not be published as being compatible.