I am not SFG certified, but was RKC certified and recertified under Pavel, learned to snatch from Pavel's materials , and have been snatching KBs for about 17 years (IIRC), so I have a lot of familiarity with Hardstyle techniques and principles. I have always been a Hardstyle practitioner and, although I am somewhat familiar with GS techniques, I have never had coaching, or trained or competed in that style.
IMO:
There is no benefit (except perhaps in using a purposeful overspeed eccentric with a lighter bell) and some drawbacks to dropping and catching the KB straight over the top. Not that going straight over is bad technique, but it does have tradeoffs and is not essential to the essence of Hardstyle. Therefore, any standard that requires going straight over the top is misguided.
There is a point where an exaggerated corkscrew drop detracts from the power and crispness that is desirable in Hardstyle, but this is not a justification for requiring only a straight drop and punch through.
Since "corkscrew" seems to be a loaded term, I prefer to think of it as "keeping the hand above the bell." Imagine a two-handed slow motion cheat clean into the rack. The working hand goes from on top of the handle at the bottom to under the handle at the top, but the body of the bell stays below the hand the whole time. If this is good technique for the clean, why not for the snatch?
Leaning back to initiate the drop ("making space for the bell") is good technique and should not be discouraged. I find it very advantageous in allowing for a more vertical drop, close to the body, but still allowing a good angle to sweep the bell into the back swing, and allowing you to absorb some of the force of the drop on the way down (what I call "playing tug o'war with bell" or "taking the slack out of the arm"). That being said, you don't want the "leaning back" to come from hyperextending your lumbar spine, just a subtle bend of the knees to get yourself out of the way of the bell.
If you drop the bell while strictly vertically planked up it creates a couple of potential problems. One is that in order to get an angle to sweep the bell into the backswing, you have to cast the bell too far out in front, which gets especially problematic with heavier bells. The other is that if you drop the bell straight down vertically near your body, you have no angle and sweep it back and the force of the drop tends to hit all at once on the bottom, causing unnecessary stress on the grip and allowing less ability to transfer the force of the drop to the hips. With lighter bells, it's easier to get away without making space for the bell, and casting it a little out in front to create an angle for the backswing. But with a heavier bell, dropping with a strict vertical alignment becomes more problematic.
To me, the two big technical distinctions of Hardstyle compared to GS are rooting and the hip hinge (especially the hip hinge). GS competitors often lift their heels on the drop, and use a "pendulum" hip hinge, with a straightening of knees on the backswing, and a rebending of the knees on the upswing (as in
@Sauli's transfer swing in the video above when he switches hands). In Hardstyle, we want to stay solidly rooted, and the hip hinge is a straight back (hip and knee flexion) and straight forward (hip and knee extension). These technical distinctions are essential to the nature of Hardstyle because they are based on the principal of maximum power production, not on maximum efficiency. Whereas, I don't believe that is the case for the straight over the top punch through and drop (with perhaps the exception of a deliberately overspeed eccentric using a lighter bell).
A one second pause in the lockout is unrealistic for a 5 minute snatch test (that's 100 seconds, over a minute and a half out of 5 minutes, just pausing), and in my experience and to my knowledge this is not required on the 5 minute test (as distinct from the technique test). However, there should be fixation in the sense of the bell being momentarily motionless in the lockout. I have seen a lot of people with more of a "touch and go" lockout, along with things like leaning forward, thrusting the head forward, or swinging the bell BACK into the lockout and using the stretch reflex to stop it and propel it forward, where the bell is never really stationary overhead. I don't know how strictly this is currently enforced.
As noted above, these are my opinions and observations, based on my training and experience with kettlebells and the principles of Hardstyle. Obviously, if you are preparing for a certification, you need to comply with the official SF standards.
