I played SC, SC2, and WC3 fairly competitively (top 100 or so in each of those games). I tried WC2 multiplayer once and I swear grunts were in my base within ~60 seconds of the game starting. I'm sure I would have figured it out if I continued but it felt faster than a 4 pool.
WC2 is actually an incredibly slow game. Like even BW is slow compared to SC2 (especially these days) but try going back to WC2 now and it'll feel downright glacial.
Those were the days. I think I preferred WC2 because of how precise the play was.