> This process gets dramatically slower for … modules on distributed file systems, modules with slow side-effects

Oh no. Look I'm not saying you're holding it wrong, it's perfectly valid to host your modules on what is presumably NFS as well as having modules with side effects but what if you didn't.

I've been down this road with NFS (and SMB if it matters) and pain is the only thing that awaits you. It seems like they're feeling it. Storing what is spiritually executable code on shared storage was a never ending source of bugs and mysterious performance issues.