After all, white is the default/normal. So why shouldn't they use the default/normal emoji, am I right?

It's not a server, it's their marketing term for a VM. You also tell people you order a venti?

Wtf is a droplet?

Likely something in the kernel not yielding the cpu for too long or holding one of the bigger locks for too long. Perf recordings of the stutters might be interesting to fix it without the big gun of going full RT.