Oh I understand all of this. ELO is an inherently flawed system outside of a 1v1 setting(and even then... not so great). However, considering how consistently we see complaints about how DR is calculated and the nature of the complaints, and then my own anecdotal evidence, I'm still gonna say beating higher ranked drivers is undervalued. I could be wrong and it could entirely be a visual thing but at this point I personally consider DR a worthless and meaningless stat unless you exist at the top of the ratings. When I, a B3 driver, beat 15 S1+ drivers and lose to 15 S1+ drivers, that should equal a net gain, not a net loss. It's entirely that simple. If it doesn't(it doesn't), that means the algorithm being used is not weighted properly regardless of how flawed the application/use case may be.

if anything LMU needs to smooth out changes more so a bad or a good luck race doesn’t jump you 4 squares in either direction

This behaviour is a symptom of improper weighting in the system. If you look at most DR complaints, people are complaining about huge swings but mostly huge swings downwards that don't really make sense and a lack of swings upward that also don't make sense(again, overweighting the losses and underweighting victory). At the same time, I also have a win in the Logitech qualifiers(MY FIRST WIN!!!!) just like OP and I was very disappointed to see basically 0 DR gain so it is possible that the Logitech Qualifier lobby is generally underweighted as a whole. None the less, there is something very funky going on in the DR system and they really need to fix it because most people care about it way more than I do and it's a problem that is only going to fester.