Out of the box my S4 is slower than my iPhone 5 (loaded with stuff). I'm sure if you flashed a stripped down ROM it'd be better though, which is what you may have done (and most people would never do).
My gf's S4 is stock and i simply cannot see how it could be faster beyond cutting out animation transitions. There's no frame skipping, pausing or lag at all! And she uses all social media including QQ and WhatApp all the sodding time. Hence i highly doubt the 5S will be faster out of the box. In fact all phones released in the last 12 months have been click> straight into app.
Agreed, I find widgets to be massively overrated as well.
If you're an iPhone user then the benefits of widgets will take a while to come to you.
For me it's:
Press center button while off - unlock phone by Swipping
On the home screen i see weather, time, date, temp, all notifications, folders i set up to segregate my apps to type (games, shopping, Google etc) and search bar with mic icon for voice commands. (Phone, contacts texts and camera icons as along the bottom in a separate bar as well for easy access)
All this information is useful to me, if not i can change it to a widget that
is useful
Swipe left - BBC news, twitter and FB
or Swipe right - Hotmail, Googlemail and Pulse news feeds
Swipe again for calendar and my to do list.
You can't get to all that information as quickly and easily on iOS