I also appreciate and thank you for the reply. I do find it strange that there is no one from line 6 is acting officially here.
It is good to get a little insight although I politely disagree about optimisation being an ongoing process. I think the lag and the preset volume levels are core functions that people would expect to be right from the start. By all means, add bells and whistles, such as loopers later, but the basics should be sorted first.
I have tried the Boss GT-100 and Zoom G5. I have not purchased either, due to limitations that I felt were too much of a compromise (boss had a limited number of effects for a flagship model eg no echo and restrictions where you can use each effect in the chain, whereas the zoom only had 3 presents per bank and bank switching was not great). However, what both units have really fast, I would say seemless, preset changes and controlling preset volumes were both possible.
I had assumed from these older units, from competitors, that lag-less preset changes would be standard now.
I will keep an eye on the development of the Firehawk in the hope that it could be the unit that is draws me back to multi-effect units. For the time being, I will keep my money in my pocket and carry on tap-dancing on single-effects-pedal pedalboard (that includes an m5, which I love btw).
Please, by all means, feel free to convince me to part with my money in the future by making Firehawk the unit I thought it would be. I will be waiting...
Again, D.I., thanks.