Not gonna lie... I might rejoin the VSCode group soon.

PHPStorm is great, but... just feels so sluggish for what I get out of it.

The incoming VSC Laravel extension will likely be a great Laravel IDEA equivalent, and with some decent extension setup and better keybindings VSC can achieve most of the same functionality as the rest of PHPStorm.

Especially if you're used to using the CLI for things like git, tests, etc.

memory leaks of vs code extensions drives me crazy that's why I use jetbrains products

Memory leaks of Java apps like Jetbrains products drive me crazy too 🙃

IMO there's no way to win with most apps these days except by restarting them regularly.

For my own reasons I ended up on an M1 MBP mostly for battery life, and the CPU does excellently most of the time, but Jetbrains slows to a crawl at times (especially when I'm in a hurry!).

I also like experimenting with different ways of working, "smaller" tools, etc.

I'm still in my PHPStorm trial and I think I'm about to pull the trigger on the full purchase. I do a lot of Node, React, and other work that feels a lot less like my Laravel/PHP code... when I'm in PHPStorm I'm in a different mindset.

I suppose I could look at different VSCode Profiles....

I say definitely go for it! All of the products of jet brains are amazing. Highly customizable. For php storm and laravel combination I highly recommend laracast phpstorm tutorial. Life becomes way easier. Also web storm is very powerful tool for javascript ecosystem.