so ive been trying to nail split S maneuvers consistently and my quad just feels sluggish coming out of the dive portion, like it recovers but theres this weird mushy feeling right at the pull and i cant tell if its my rates being too low or if my D term is just too high and killing the snap. running betaflight 4.4 on a 5inch, motors are around 2400kv if that matters. my throttle response feels fine on straights its just that specific moment in the split where everything goes soft on me

D term is almost definitely your culprit, I had the exact same mush feeling on my hyperlite build and dropping D by like 8-10 on pitch fixed it completely. also check your D_min, sometimes that gets overlooked and it'll rob the snap right when you want it most. what does your current filter setup look like

honestly might just be your rates profile too, if your center sensitivity isnt high enough it'll feel dead around the stick center which is basically where you are during the pull out. i had this for weeks before i realized my expo was just way too aggressive