people talk about solana ux but every time i've wanted to swap in phantom i've had transactions fail 5+ times before going through. is this better or worse ux than paying $50 for a swap when the chain is under high load?

eh, if you use jup everything works pretty much exactly like uniswap except it's faster and cheaper. only get failed txn if your fees aren't set high enough and there's huge congestion.

the audience for swapping in-wallet is complete beginners who aren't trading size and don't care or are unaware of the huge fees being charged.

but yes agreed, much bigger issues with fees being set correctly in a solana context than eth