No, because the engine in question is a common rail diesel engine, which means that the fuel is kept under a constant pressure of 2,200 atmospheres, ready to be injected into the cylinders. The only thing that has to happen is for the piezoelectric injectors to open. On a vehicle with a common rail diesel engine without firmware, where the logic is hardwired electronics in the ECU, and the throttle is connected with a cable as opposed to drive-by-wire, such a thing does not occur: zero latency, instant response.
As I owned both types of vehicles, I was in the unique position to observe and experiment. These are vehicles from completely different manufacturers, one German, one Japanese. The Japanese diesel has no issues or problems whatsoever. That's the one I kept.
Not a single stall since going back to a mechanical throttle. And also, I've learned on a manual and have been driving them daily for decades.
And for the record, I had two firmware updates on the drive-by-wire model, and they only helped marginally with throttle response, but never fixed the issue.
Well, doesn't fuel flow need to be increased before acceleration can begin? That causes latency, much more than software would. Perhaps the software is causing a little bit of that, perhaps there's a simple delay loop instead of a sensor there and it's a little too long.
We'll never know, but there are plenty of guesses you could make.
> why the engine will often konk out unless the accelerator pedal is pressed fully when starting on a hill
That doesn't at all sound like a software problem. It sounds like you're conflating "I don't like my car" with "my car software sucks".
> upshift from 5th to 6th [...] 1,400 RPM [...] 1,200 RPM
Are you certain that upshifting like that would only drop you 200 RPM? Not at least 1000? I'm fairly certain that's not correct.
> [...] all my criticisms can be addressed by offering a manual transmission option with a dry clutch [...]
Just buy a manual car if you care so much. Or buy a journal and vent into that rather than the HN comment section. Goodness gracious.