Oz,
My experiences with standard leverguns & two Mare's Legs don't agree with your statements. You're trying to transfer full-stocked handling characteristics into the un-stocked ML, and they don't transfer.
Speed: A STOCKED levergun with a three-point mount (front hand, rear hand, AND SHOULDER) can be quite fast. With a stock, the gun stays in a more consistent firing position simply because of its rear point of contact, which you don't have with the stockless ML.
With a stocked levergun, you can hold the rifle in a steadier mount with your forward hand pulling back enough to keep the stock resting against the shoulder, and the sights close to the actual line-of-sight firing/sighting position, as the rear hand works the lever. With a front point of contact and a rear point of contact, the stocked rifle just doesn't need to wander as much as the stockless ML does while the lever's being cycled. The sight picture can be quickly re-acquired.
The stockless ML can NOT be cycled as steadily as the stocked gun can, it'll wander more as the lever's cycled, and it can't regain a sight picture as quickly, especially in the hotter calibers.
That's compared to a stocked conventional rifle.
Compared to a good DA revolver, there simply is no comparison. You can't physically operate the action, recover sight picture, and fire subsequent shots as fast as you can with a DA revolver held in a strong two-handed hold in aimed fire.
Even a good SA revolver with much practice at all can easily fire, cycle (manually cock the hammer), re-acquire a sight picture, and fire a second aimed shot faster than a same-calibered .44 Mag ML.
Try firing six rapid aimed .44 Mag shots at a bear as it's running toward you with an ML, try the same with a Ruger or S&W DA .44 Mag. There will be no contest, in such a situation you probably won't get off more than a couple shots with the ML, if that, whereas you can easily empty your DA revolver.
More than one threat or target, requiring you to acquire a sight picture and fire quickly at both? The revolver that does not require you to lose your firing grip with either hand WILL maneuver more quickly and more efficiently than having to remove your strong hand from the firing position, cycle the lever, regain your stronghand hold, get the gun back in line, re-acquire your sight picture, and fire with the ML.
I reject your implication that a point & shoot is all that's required, as well as that 10 feet will be the only distance you may be threatened at.
Speed can come from many factors, not the least of which is the reduction of extraneous movement from the initial draw through the first shot and all shots that follow.
Speed is not more dependent on the shooter than the gun. A shooter's skill is important, but no matter how good Mario Andretti may be with an all-out racecar, he can not win the same race with a Prius.
The platform DOES make a major difference.
No matter how fast you may get the ML to run, it physically CANNOT fire six rounds as fast as a good DA revolver, in the same caliber, aimed or otherwise.
A DA .44 Mag revolver can also be operated faster one-handed if the other hand's injured than the ML can. Same with an SA revolver.
Weight: Weight alone does not make one gun's recoil easier to handle than a totally different type of gun in the same caliber.
I have a video here somewhere of me firing a Smith .460 Mag snub revolver with full-bore loads, three times, one-handed.
I would never fire a .44 Mag ML one-handed. It's not a matter of weight (the ML would be heavier), it's a matter of the gun's grip configuration, and how you hold it in your hand.
The Smith used a conventional angled revolver grip, which allows the shooter to hold & fire it with the wrist in an almost normal (as in more natural)extended position relative to the rest of the arm. That locates the biggest part of the gun's mass above the hand, not directly in front of it, so the hand can accept the recoil more comfortably and hang on better as the revolver's recoil is split between trying to move straight back and pivoting the muzzle upward when it can't.
On the ML, you have a very slightly angled straight stock nub wrist, which is harder to hang onto under recoil, requires the shooter to bend the wrist down at a much more acute angle, positions the gun more directly in front of the hand, and directs more of its recoil straight back.
Nowhere near as easy to hang onto as a revolver, and not as easy on the wrist. Not to mention the possibility of banging the front of the lever against the second finger on the hand.
The typical stock angle on a straight-wristed rifle is nowhere near as efficient in handling recoil in a handgun version as a curved grip with a greater angle. That was noticed early on & you can see it in the flintlock pistols of the 1600 & 1700s.
All of which still leaves you with the slower reloading of the ML if needed, and the fact that a revolver is much less likely to toss in a feeding jam in the middle of a string of fire.
Denis