I don't really think I have the base of knowledge in the field to completely understand everything you're saying here Scrap. I won't discount something I don't even understand.

One thing I was thinking about which your 'touch and feel' phrase made me think of is the way you sort of feel best hitting a pad hard proportionally to how hard it's thrown at you. For example if I don't have enough force or correct timing with a punch hitting the pad and it's thrown hard at me I might feel a bit of jarring. If I aim to king hit a pad held by someone half my weight, when their not ready for it - it'll feel wrong too.

I guess it might make you instinctively predict the flow of the pad holder. This should be possible if they're not stopping and starting a lot, don't double up with one pad and are maintaining some momentum. Sort of like if you're on the bag and you throw four solid punches maybe you know the fourth is going to have more power than the others.

I'm guessing this instinct could be good to havefor the purpose of being able to know when the hard hits are coming if you're in a position where maybe you're behind your guard or trapped in a way which doesn't let you see as easily. Or just to speed up your reflexes even when you can?

Anyway that's my extremely uneducated theory - does it make any sense?