Hi Adam,
Thank you for your nice review!
This is a known issue that could be solved by unchecking Show count checkbox in the plugin’s admin Media
> Media Library
> Filters
> Show count
. The issue is critical for users with a lot of media taxonomies. A few categories don’t produce too many requests.
The plugin’s code needs refactoring to get rid of the issue completely while keep counting the number of files in every category. It’s partly done but needs a serious revision because it was written 2 years ago. I’ll issue an update with the re-factored code as soon as it is possible in the circumstance I live in.
Best
-Nadia