Given the issues I outlined earlier, should we even consider preloading fonts?

I suspect even with Chrome’s current sub-optimal behaviour there’s a case for preloading one or maybe two critical fonts.

But don’t take my word for it, test it for yourself as your traffic mix e.g. Safari vs Chrome, the choice of server and your page make up will influence the outcome:

I tested 26 Chrome extensions to measure their impact on CPU consumption, page download size, and user experience.

Key findings:

Grammarly and Honey are super slow!
The performance impact of individual extensions is usually outweighed by the site being loaded, but they increase power consumption and having many extensions installed adds up
Extension developers can score easy wins by following best practices