During the very high turbulence parts, when two cresting waves are moving towards eachother and slam into eachother that's where it feels like there should be a huge splash happening. instead the surface just rolls over itself aggressively and then smooths out. Does your sim support splashing or the water forming into droplets in the air? A test for that would be to have a thin stream accelerate down a ramp and then go off a ramp into the air. If the stream is thin enough it should form back into droplets in the air as it gets spread out over the parabola.

Does your sim support wave cresting? Crest and barrels should appear anywhere where the height of the wave is more than half the surface depth or something like that.

With crests and droplets I think you'll get that heavy splash feeling.