It'll do that Brendan, if you are a recent lottery winner you might just find an auxilliary valve somewhere to fit as well as the existing lift lever / valve and connect the QRC pipe to that instead. As Bob notes in the other thread, the Super Major back end had an inbuilt TPL / Auxilliary lift selector valve.
Failing this, safely lock or block the splitter up in the air as it only drops through gravity.
My view is that this is one of the very few serious operational aspects of the FM I've encountered and I guess due to other hydraulic gear not being so common during its anticipated working life and who then would have guessed just how long the average life would be !
As far as the speed difference is concerned this sounds OK, there is not a vast flow of fluid, on the ram out stroke you have to fill the entire volume of the ram casing to move the piston, on the return stroke only this volume minus the volume taken up by the ram itself so same volume of oil flow = slow and shure out, quick and dirty back
Welcome to the forum I seem to have missed your original posting.