Perhaps I’m not understanding the whitepaper. In the INSTEON pdf white paper, “Insteon - the Details,” on page 36 it mentions that standard packets require 6 zero crossings and extended packets 13 crossings (a different issue than latency), but then on page 37 where it talks about rf, they state the entire rf message is sent....entirely. No wait for zero crossings. So even if an rf signal is delayed a bit (latent) it has more chance to outrun the power-line sent signals because of no wait time on zero-crossing packet synchronization. On page 40, it does mention that the start of all rf signals are synced to the household zero crossing phase...every 120th second.
So I don’t understand. Is your info about the hop delay imperical? Because in theory, wireless should beat power-line every time. Unless the white paper isn’t correct that is...or if I’m missing something else.