Apparently its all in my head…
Did some extremely (un)scientific testing last night (chalk lines on the road & my drunk housemate with a stopwatch) & it does indeed seem to be a combo of the components/geo/materials that make the difference.
With both gear ratios on the same bike (obviously at different times) I was not able to tell the difference between them & the almighty stopwatch showed no practicable difference either (averaged over 5 runs)…
This makes me slightly sad as it now turns out my accelerating through molasses feeling bike, cant be fixed by a quickie cog/chainring change… seems the bike needs to go on a diet 