The stage and focusing motion can feel rather slow when using low magnification optics - 10 or 20x objective or a Pi camera lens. The highest resolution lenses need small motion increments which is part of what sets the standard motion geometry of the Openflexure microscope.
@MilliRowland has done some testing of the microscope using gearing of 1:1 or 1:1.25 instead of the standard 2:1. The motors seem to be strong enough for this, there does not seem to be any issue with missed steps. It just moves 2 or 2.5 times further per step, so gets where you want it to be more quickly.
There are some issues with modified gear ratios fitting on the z-axis.
If you would like to try this out, STLs for the gears and an analysis of the motion is in an issue on the Gitlab repository (issue #231).