@EXWOK
I like your last paragraph - that is exactly the advice we gave Trubbie before first flight!
No problem either with your view that negative lift was never a practical problem, but on paper the time before the cg started to lift was just under 0.5 sec longer than a contemporary tailed aircraft for a step elevator input at approach speeds.
Don't want to sound clever/clever, but the height response at the cockpit would be earlier than the cg movement, which might be why you saw a fairly normal response.
But from Mike Riley's work it sounds as if some pilots had different experience in strong headwinds does it not?