It doesn't matter because there is no "perfect" stunt design. I've come to the conclusion that it's highly personal and what works great for me might not work for you. I've had others fly my ships and tell me they were "unflyable", yet I can still grease a decent pattern when I put mind to it. I've flown other people's ships and wonder how they even flew them level even though they did quite well with them. My best advice: build a lot, fly a lot, and figure out what works for you.
Kind of. This line of reasoning ("everyone is different and so find xxxx you like and practice till you can't stand up") is typically, or almost universally, used to excuse or rationalize not making necessary changes to get better. Based on my rather extensive experience, there is very little variation in "personal preference" among the most competitive, and all those things that make people think they have a special need is just a matter of not being willing to make the changes necessary to improve. Because in many cases, making this change might make you go backwards for a while.
You can't just learn to live with a weakness and try harder to overcome it, because someone else will try just as hard but not have as many obstacles, and beat you. You cannot "out-practice" anyone to try to work around a problem.
I note that you used Igor and David as examples of not wasting time on what you consider trivial discussions. Whether anyone knows it or not, you couldn't have picked two less applicable examples. Igor is well-known as one of the most sophisticated engineers in stunt, to the point that his controllers are the standard for electric, and what he is doing is so far beyond most people's understanding that he doesn't get enough credit. And having flown with David for the last 35ish years, and knowing his history, he had these discussions going back to when he was a kid, with Ted, Gary McClellan, and his father all having absolutely endless discussions about exactly these sorts of topics. Read the Imitation article, particularly part 1, to see how far ahead of the game they were even then. David grew up in that environment and while he doesn't spend a lot of time telling you about it online, thats because he knew the answer 50 years ago.
I have noted (and Ted has told us all for years) about flying other people's airplanes, and finding it amazing how well they do. That is not personal preference, that is a combination of overcoming flaws by brute force. That's swell, you can overcome some problems, but that doesn't mean that is the only way they can do it, or that even a small extra problem can be overwhelmed by more effort - because other people put in the same or more effort, and don't have a problem.
I have flown many *competitive* airplanes, that is, airplanes that win or finish in high positions in the NATS or Team Trials, from the most accomplished designers and trimmers. You know what you find - that they *all fly very much the same* and have no significant vices that you have to "overcome" or better suits someones "highly personal" preferences. You might expect that with Ted, David, Paul Walker, and I. We did a fly-around last weekend, David, Jim, and I - aside from slight neutral differences, no real vices and fly very much alike.
But, when Bob Hunt and I can fly each other's airplanes and they fly nearly identically, when we have *absolutely nothing* in common in terms of design history, natural talent, flying experience, that wouldn't be expected using the personal preference theory. Last time we did that, mine was a super-thick wing, medium-heavy wing loading, piped 61 airplane and Bobby's was a super-light electric with a wing half as thick. They flew the same. Bob has a 100x my natural talent, practices all the time. I can barely walk to the center of the circle most days and fly 100 flights a year, most of the time. I have done stuff like this a lot, there are *very minor* differences, but for the most part, everyone has converged on the same feel and response, there aren't any significant personal differences.
So, you are *sort of* right that the answers are pretty obvious with casual examination, the idea of "highly personal" characteristics is, frankly, about as wrong as it could be, and is almost always used to rationalize trying to trudge on without making any of the changes you need to.
Brett