Overall debug / compile performance was really worrying me, so I have tried to investigate where time goes to what. But cpu sampling or instrumented performance measuring did not tell me where exactly time went, until I have managed to come up with satisfying solution - I've enabled speed optimization for all core/*.cpp files - after that 'ReleaseDebug' starts up much faster.
Also turned on incremental linking, now it links in no time - useful for debugging.
'Debug' configuration still is using "full debug", meaning startup time is really slow. ( > 25 seconds).
filter("files:core/*.cpp", "(Release|ReleaseDebug)");
optimize("speed");
filter();
Now all files except core are compiled without optimizations, but core is compiled with optimizations.
Also changes kind to console:
kind("ConsoleApp", "windows");
Otherwise godot would launch console window all the time for android adb.