I bet you might like one of his Stubbie quads in the 6' range. To me, you just described Manny's Superchunk or ASQ. Ever tried one? My 5'9" ASQ was too big for me but basically was my midlength for a while: it caught anything. I find the SC tail turns better than ASQ.
this is such a classic erBB thread. Everybody trying to apply their own rules onto a type of board/surfing and what is subjectively "good" or even acceptable. Love it.
Personally, those clips of mids or LBs being ridden "like a shortboard" just don't do it for me. Of course it's completely eye of the beholder criteria, but there's few things more unsightly to me than seeing 2 ft of extra board length flapping around as a good surfer tries to muscle it around in tight turns. I think the same thing every time I see a Hawaiian (there's a lot of "HPLB-ing" over there) or pot-bellied local around here (way better surfers than me) surfing those big boards that way. The guy on a big board in GG's video (who is clearly a great surfer and I'm sure surf anything) is straight-up doing the Huntington hop at one point! If you think a floater on a big board and then scurrying to the nose looks good, more power to you. But for me personally, if that's ripping, I don't want it. It's not how I want to surf a Midlength or watch one be ridden. IMHO, the aspirational surfing gold standard will always be Curren in the late 80's-Search era- no wasted movements, smooth as silk... speed+power+flow. How would Curren surf a Mid?? And I don't see why that changes whether there are other people around, like
GWS_2 said, but to each his own. Maybe in a few years, a mid will be my daily driver and I'll need to tell myself I'm "ripping" on it... but not yet! It's what I pull out when I want to cruise and carve. If you need to rip on your midlength, then you do you!