Knowing Apple I'd personally be concerned about retribution from them. I feel like something else completely unrelated on my device will stop functioning because I'm a user of the app store.
I don’t feel like my iPhone 12 mini is slow with 17.4? I guess it doesn’t make sense t argue about subjective experiences but I just wanted add a some anecdata.
Battery feels just fine (over a day, that is with Tailscale turned off [did get better some updates ago.])