There are many lemmy instances in the world, but currently most people are using lemmy.world. This is why everything has gotten so slow.
You don’t have to delete your lemmy.world account, but check out https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/map it’s a geo-based map of lemmy instances – explore stuff nearest you, pick one, sign up, search , subscribe and begin interacting with your favorite communities. It’s easy, free and it will be faster. Try it!
“Signups: no” can also just mean that your sign-up will be checked manually, like on older instances like beehaw and sopuli
Yeah they really need to update that binary presentation. Our instance says no registrations, but we do have them open, you just gotta pass the requirements: email, sign up question and captcha.