I understand tone doesn't come through in text so I ask these questions not to be argumentative but to try to gain from other's perspectives....
I would certainly agree. I don't ask that to imply that what I am proposing isn't high performance but more so to ask the philosophical question. A large M in this design would be about a 30K' and Mach 2 flight. In the BlackHawk 75xl from Wildman a quick sim shows 35,000'+ and Mach 3 is achievable. I understand terms like "High performance" are inherently subjective and I want to understand what different people's experience have shown them. Given that most rocket flights are not in the Mach 3 regime and there are sadly still a lot of failed flights, my first L2 attempt among them :-( , it would seem that being more conservative isn't necessarily a path to success.
Once you can't see the rocket at Apogee (around 10,000'-15,000' AGL and above all else being equal I would say) you are relying on the tracker to locate it and implicitly determine if the drogue has deployed (descent rate). Assuming you have the waiver and range space this would be just as true at 50,000'. With regard to the Mach the same analysis would be required for a design going Mach 2.5-3.0 and if there was a flaw in fin flutter mitigation, fin attachment, or drag separation analysis, just to name a few areas, the design could fail. I was fat dumb and happy with my initial design G10 funs until FinSim put me in my place, now I have the science to back the improved design. I say this to ask this question. IF, and it is a big IF, I can show a valid understanding of the engineering and concepts and that leads to a technically sound and safe design does the fact that it will go Mach 3.7 ish and possibly 80,000' make it a bad idea? The answer to that question could very well be yes, and there are people on this forum with more time under drogue than I have alive and I ask them and anyone else to make me smarter and tell me if that is the case. Unless and until that happens I intent to follow the science and the engineering to design, and hopefully build, something that will overcome these challenges.
I've learned so much already, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to contribute to this thread so far.
-Tony