Probably because an important message passed by on the CAN-bus and that got a bit more priority from the CPU than the GUI
In fact I wager the OPPOSITE happened -- that they hired or outsourced software to people who have "web technology experience" and the UI and graphics architecture is a mishmash software stacks hastily thrown together (read: not architected).
Jaguar has a similar issue with the I-PACE where the HVAC system couldn't keep up with the knobs and would lag. A real embedded engineer who worked on real-time systems would know how to properly handle a quadrature encoded knob and NOT lag. A web-technology-first person who slapped something together using nodejs and/or Python would likely not know.
Both my BMWs (one each of the last two generations of iDrive) do not in any noticeable capacity, nor did my 2009 one with what was then known as "professional" navigation.
It's core to usability at this point, though. They should make the effort.