Yeah, the commissioning process is very slow. One reason is that a lot of compromises were made in the design to save weight and power while still achieving the requisite precision. Some of these compromises result in very slow movement of telescope parts away from their safe "launch positions." Also every step of the deployment and commissioning process is done with the most extreme degree of caution, cross-checking, and verification that everything is as it should be.
Understandable under the circumstances. They traded speed for weight savings. Also the orbital trajectory is interesting. It's like rolling a bowling ball up a miles-high, smooth mountain, with exactly the right direction and velocity to bring it to a dead stop exactly at the summit. They do get a couple of corrective rocket burns on the way, but they want to keep the amount of fuel burned for these to an absolute minimum.
Orbital mechanics has never been my forte. It’s just amazing to me how astronomers from 2-300 years ago were able to work all this out in the first place. I’m impressed by the ability of the technicians today to pull this off.
I think this is an amazing engineering feat!
I like that bowling ball analogy.