I am actually going to start with a concern or two of Jay's, since Dato even being above the clouds is the crux of the post here:
Then there's the other thing, the time it took for you to get above the clouds as well. You're making it seem as if you're at the same level of speed as someone with these amounts of buffs on them, when your only buff is the ability to fly. So, in my eyes, I could only see you breaking through the clouds, and only catching the last 50+ of your gifts, as Eric said, are already speeding towards you, since you're not faster than Athos in Saiken Sage Mode.
I was under the assumption that Dato was already in the air, and kept said distance from Athos' upward trajectory, not that he flew up in pursuit of him from a ground level position. To suddenly be 35 yards from Athos even while the Uzu biju holder was grounded, and then have Athos to shoot into the air like a freakish blue bullet, and even then for Dato to casually float upwards after him is, as you say, kind of ridiculous.
It only makes sense if Dato was already near cloud level, which were my initial thoughts on both his original post and his repost due to this explanatory excerpt from his original post combind with how he got into the air position in the first place:
Going with what Athos is saying is the current timeline, which is him arriving above the clouds before the first droplets of the acidic rain could touch the ground (and that's from the ground, jumping, regardless of his speed enhancers) then it can be surmised that Dart would be able to pass through his clouds right after Athos did as he was the closest to his own technique and light enough to ascend rapidly without needing more of a modifier.
... He leaped straight and high into the air, but he wouldn't come back down. No, he wanted an aerial view of all the contenders as well as remain out of sight and range for the upcoming fights to unfold. He did not yet have field advantage and he did not yet know what the other's abilities were. He utilized his third and last action this turn to reduce his gravity at the cost of decreased physical force. He flew through the air to gain a nice vantage point above the contenders and awaited to see how the other players reacted to the first signs of conflict.[/color]
Now, Athos either is not arguing a view different than that for one reason or another, perhaps because since it was not one of the key issues with the original post (the dodge and the Kamui were) then it was not a main staple of argument. Your point is not invalidated because of that, but I felt it fair to acknowledge that because of what comes later in my opinion piece.
So, when one loses count at 50+, I see that as not having a masterful Sharingan to pick up on their speed, thus largely unable to really dodge them at the range you had placed yourself. Especially, when you only do the one thing...
He has mangekyou sharingan, mastery of sharingan is not really a point that can be made. Not to mention I can lose count of the number of cars passing by without being terrible at tracking them with my eyes; I just lost the counting number that I had in my head at the time because some of those cars are actually coming towards me.
Athos' points:
#1 I don't think Dart dodged my attack.
I said, "In the span of only a second or so, a total of one hundred dust release blasts had left Athos hands and moved to plague the battlefield."
Dart said, "Dart was able to count them as his Sharingan was able to perceive their color and see their movements as individual balls but he lost count at 52 when he noticed that a particular cluster seemed to be coming straight for him rather swiftly."
So he's let them basically all fire, more importantly all the ones that are trying to hit him. He literally says, "He would launch backwards swiftly just as the first few managed to get to his sides and blow past them with ease before they could entrap him."
So blasts are already beside him and he chooses to rewrite my post so instead of it saying, "That only left Dart, who was airborne but the closest to Athos and the attacks, which aimed to come down and around the man so to close off his escape and almost chase him towards the ground like a falling cage before he would meet a gruesome death like the lot of them."
It is apparently saying, "That only left Dart, who was airborne but the closest to Athos and the attacks, which aimed to come down and around the man so to close off his escape and almost chase him towards the ground like a falling cage before he would meet a gruesome death like the lot of them. Also he left some big hole in the attack so even once it surrounded Dart he could just casually float out of the way."
He just floated backwards into an attack and is dead...
Dart's front and above is the posotive xyz axii (I think that's how you do that plural) and below and behind him are the negative xyz for the following references to said coordinates. All defined by the right hand rule.
As Dart said, all of them were relased within 1 second to go towards their destinations, not that they reached their destinations in 1 second. Hence, not only is how fast they are actually going to these destinations up for debate, so is apparently the exact way they get into formation.
"Wait what, but I stated that they are to go after him in a cage-like fashion-"
They move towards him to get into that formation; under the previous assumption of him getting above the clouds as I said to Jay and you starting this jutsu right as you breach the clouds, then he would be approximately level with you upon the start of this jutsu; your sensory would continue to track him until he completely clears the cloud, as detecting him by his tangible form blocking atmospheric wind is not something that you are doing to track him.
So, the balls all originate from the posotive xy position and are able to move to the z position based on the pictoral depiction of your justu that you have on your wikia page for this technique. However, in order to be in the negative xyz, they would have to go past Dart, so logically speaking until one or two pass the yz plane where x=0 (IE, a plane made if you were to cut Dart's body down from head to toe facing his front and behind) there would be none behind him.
This is why he makes the attempt to float backwards; once he moves from his position, Athos' old tracking method is no longer sufficient, so the balls should not be able to home in on him (and so continue as if Dato had stayed in one spot).
Now, not just being nailed by the ones positioned above him because there are "gaps" or a "hole" does seem like re-writing your technique/post. But that part is not much different than what Jay did in his post. First, how you describe the attacks:
But that wasn't all, thanks to the fact that he had known exactly where everyone had been, Athos would have known where to send the blasts so that they threatened everyone on the battlefield beneath him. A total of twenty-five blasts of Senjutsu, Bijuu enhanced dust release balls would have come swarming towards Kamui Uchiha, Taumaster, Jay Nara, and Dart Terumi. But the attacks didn't just come from straight up, they came down and made sure to swarm each of the opponents, closing off a plethora of directional escapes that they could make.
Now, the wiki page for this jutsu explicitly states that all of the spheres descend simultaneously, as in, all at once.
(
http://narutoprofile.wikia.com/wiki/Dust_Release:_Genocide_Attack )
Combined with your in-post description, that means that there should be no "waves" of spheres dropping out of the sky, they should all at once arrive at their respective destinations already in formation in one second, which may have been what you had in mind considering the reason that you are against Dato's post.
However, that would mean that Jay's dodging, would not work at all like he intended:
When his form would be completed at full power, the multitude of Dust Release blasts would begin punching through the clouds on their way towards the ground. They were coming in faster than two shakes of a jackrabbit's behind and he took special notes with his Theta State to calculate their trajectories. With 25 on them coming towards him, he would have to spend these next precious seconds evading each and every one of them that came his way.
With the extra speed at his nimble toe-tips, it was time to go to work and he couldn't have any of these fist sized attacks coming in contact with him. So with the flexibility of a snake, he began to go through his evasive maneuvers. The 1st was easy, simply moving to the left at the last moment. But then, it grew complex. 2nd and 3rd came at the same time and he had to zip at a much faster rate. 4th through 15th, made him consider a bigger counter in the form of the Zanzo Bunshin|Afterimage Clone, which created 15 clones of himself that would cover nearly 20 meters. He would zip through clone after clone as he took extreme note that the blasts were following his real form each time a clone took his place.
Now, if anything, that is the first place your technique was literally re-written to fit the situation. This post was not contested so it was added to the canon of the fight; why then would Dato assume that they would arrive at him already complete in formation?
As for your second point:
#2 This x5 speed multiplier for Lightweight Rock Technique makes no sense and is completely pulled out of thin air.
I agree, I have never seen that kind of modifier on the lightweight technique before and am, naturally, very skeptical of it working like this.
I only have university physics 1 under my belt, but the force of gravity is NOT the only force keeping you on planet earth, especially since you are still within the atmosphere. There is also a sort of friction with the air, which increases with increased velocity. I believe the term is "drag". More importantly, the force of gravity is dependent on the masses of the objects in question.
The mass of the Earth is a relative constant, so you releasing your mass should make the force of gravity affect you less. Why, yes, but, the force of gravity is not affecting the dust release balls that much either; they are fist sized, and while contain some mass, are not even close to as heavy as you are. They, as well as you, are affected by the planet's rotation. From an inertial point of view in space, then yes, you would be moving much faster, recieving a boost from the earth's rotation and revolution across the sun and all that. But the spheres gain that same boost because they too are on planet earth.
Of course, you "nerfed" the actual speed increase because G-forces, unmodified bodily vessels breaking a part at the seams, you know, disaster scenario stuff. But the point is that you removing the hold on gravity - in this situation and in this manner - might would help you avoid something like a rolling boulder or even a super-fast kunai, but spheres of dust release chakra? I am not seeing it.
If speed is the only way that you get out of your predicament even with all other things considered, then I don't see how you don't take any damage from the spheres.