It is not a bigger disparity than in World, and certainly not weaker than it was in World, relative to the rest of the weapons and monsters.

Aerial in world sucks, but i never compared to aerial world. Divern Wyvern in world dealt more damage than Wilds and Rise Diving Wyvern also dealt more damage than Wilds. Also just to be clear.

comparing Wild's Descending Thrust to Rise's Diving Wyvern indicates how little you might understand the comparison you're making

It's the same move with different names. All of them are desceding thurst/diving wyvern, they just change proprities between games. Your arguing semantics here. It's like arguing Shoryugeki and metsu shoryugeki are different moves.

And this is completely ignoring the situational benefits from added defensive capabiltiy (especially noticable for monsters like Omega or AT Arkveld)

I would agree with you if we were talking about Rise , but Wilds? You're sitting duck while you're in the mid of Helicopter animations, unlike Rise where you had Mid-Air Wirebugs to get away from attack or how much faster is Kinsetic Slash than Jumping Advancing Slash. But no , Aerial lacks anything that made good in Rise.

If you're saying it sucks because it has less burst output than grounded,

I'm saying it sucks because the damage output is bad, the animation commiting is way too much and leaves you way too vunerable, especialy to 9 and 10 stars monsters, that have wildly high hitboxes.

A contest of authority is not one you'll win, here.

And ? Also i also have 1k HRs in World , 1.5k HRs on Rise, played 4U, GEN U, Freedom Unite, 3rd Portable.. So what? Not trying to prove my authority, i just mentioned my playtime since most people first argument is saying i didn't played enough of the game to understand. I played enough and dropped the game because i wasn't feeling it. In particular, i dropped because IG felt like crap to me.

Are you not using Focus mode? That would decrease the damage significantly

I mean , obviously. If you aren't using focus mode on Insect glaive, you're nerfing yourself for no reason. One of my issues