Let me put it this way. I do 100km and 100mile mtb races and i have had better times and felt better/less beat up at the end of them on my FS, i have raced them with HT and ST mtb's but the FS is my favorite.
you learned to pick lines with HT which is good you can now read the terrain alot better than most (i started on HT) but now it is time to go FS