There are ways some models mitigate these issues, though there are tradeoffs. On my ZS3 at least, I can choose to have the autofocus engaged all the time, or only when I engage the shutter release. If the former, there's less delay in taking the picture, but battery life takes a hit.

Also, to make saving to the flash faster, I find it's useful to dial down the picture size to 5MP or even lower if I'm not going to make larger prints. A lot of times people just leave it at the highest setting for no good reason, and wonder why it takes longer. More data == longer flash writes ain't rocket science.

The burst modes are also helpful in this regard, keeping several pictures in memory before writing out to flash, and avoiding the autofocus delay.

But yeah, those are all workarounds, and it would be awesome if everything was faster.