Performance/refactor: evaluate possible improvements on `componentDidUpdate`

[danilowoz]

Currently, a lot of operations are being done in the componentDidUpdate, and as Dan mentioned on #377 this is a pattern that must be avoided, in order to prevent nested updates. So, we need to find out how to improve this method and address other performances issues that this might be causing.

I haven't gone any further and haven't collected evidence of any performance issues, but as the current implementation doesn't follow a proper react pattern, it's expected that it may have some issues to be addressed.