It's hard to "get it all" with one bike. There are some things that will help make a Verve better suited to your needs, and there are some basic things that can't be changed. Lowering the stem as far as you can lower it can help get you "over" the pedals more -- it'll rotate your body forward and put you into a more efficient riding position. Also -- raising the seat up to "proper" level helps. It seems common to have the seat lower than it really should be for a rider's legs, so make sure you're not short-changing yourself there, literally. The suspension seat post doesn't help fit here...its height can vary during riding (and even sitting), which makes it harder to get a consistent fit.
If you're after speed and efficiency, the tires would be a great place to start. The H5s are very heavy and pretty thick, so they'll feel dull and they'll feel sluggish. Those tires are 880 grams each -- nearly two pounds! Finding something not necessarily narrower but also more supple will really transform the way the bike feels. I've owned a Verve with the H5 tires before (an earlier model). Trust me -- you do want better tires. I replaced mine with Continental Speed Ride in 700x42. Excellent tires, very light (420 grams), and pretty fast (and inexpensive!). And they're folding tires to boot -- a great value.
Don't beat yourself up. The Verve 3 is not a cheap bike -- it's within 40 bucks of the FX 3 Disc, and it shares the FX 3's same drivetrain and hydraulic brakes. It has an alloy fork vs. the FX's carbon fork, and the Verve weighs 30 pounds to the FX's 26 pounds. Depending on what you weigh, that 4 pound difference probably represents a small percentage of your rolling weight, but it can feel like more, especially if you're the kind of rider who really likes to throw the bike around and generally be more active with it. The 32mm H2 tires the FX 3 comes with are about half the weight of the 45mm H5s on the Verve. So if you swap the tires to something lighter, you've gotten halfway down to the FX 3's weight.
I think you'll feel a pretty big difference by making sure the fit is right and adjusting where you can and upgrading the seat post and tires to something lighter (I don't know how much the telescoping seat post weighs, but a rigid one will certainly be lighter).