You were spot on! After removing the write confirmation, regardless of the connection type (GSM or Fiber router), the relay_1 switch (LED) now operates in just 3 ms max instead of 16 ms. Plus, I no longer get the [_SOCKET] Cannot read from socket! error. I completely overlooked this, so thank you for pointing it out and for your help!
Thanks for asking. A few versions above, I disassembled the relay and switched to using only an LED to eliminate any potential effects caused by the relay.