In my humble opinion, the optimal stimulus would depend on the specific needs of that specific athlete at that specific point in training. For lesser athletes, I think I remember you saying that overstimulating the CNS wasn’t as much of a problem because lesser athletes aren’t as capable of tapping into the full CNS reserve as an elite athlete. I had this in mind when I asked my original question. Considering that lesser athletes are unlikely to be highly skilled at Oly lifts and may be able to withstand more CNS load in the weight room, since on the track they are not dipping as deeply into that resource as an elite athlete, I was curious as to which lift would provide the maximum CNS stimulus in the gym, if that was in fact what the athlete needed at that point in time. I personally feel that for lesser athletes, whose skill at performing the Oly lifts reduces the load to something like 50-60% of their backsquat, the explosive nature of the lift would not supercede the reduced intensity to provide a stronger stimulus. I have no data on this, its just a semi-educated opinion. What I’m not sure about is whether or not the full range of motion in the atg squat equats to more CNS stimulus even if the actual weight on the bar was 80% or less than would be lifted in the backsquat. I don’t really buy into the time-under-tension argument, because you could just squat slower. My personal feeling has always been that moving the greatest load in the most explosive manner possible over a reasonable range of motion hits my CNS reserves the hardest, as lifting in this manner always requires more attention to recovery, at least in my experience.
While I might possibly quibble over the CNS stress from Oly lifts or at least their proximity to sprinting on the F/T curve point, you’ve made a very thoughtful argument in favor of your choices and you’re right to follow your instincts here.