I hear what you're saying and that's what I thought back then as well.
But I'm telling you that Sunlife was willing to disclose their COI rates
back then so if they're still willing and you seem to be someone who
likes to really go depth on something, why not take out the guesses
and just get the COI rates and actually mapped it out on a spreadsheet
and find out for real if your guesses are correct?
That's what I did and I found out that Sunlife's VUL was actually
the cheapest and since performance could not be predicted, I
the cheapest option would be my best bet.
Also you have to pin down an exact age/year you want to evaluate
the performance for comparison purposes.
And yes the VUL's performance would be really really poor during the first years
but again at age 65, the VUL comes out ahead vs BTID.
So if you plan to keep the insurance portion for just a few years then
maybe BTID is indeed the best option.
This was the pros I identified when I got my Sunlife VUL btw
1.) Very flexible payment options.
i.e. I can pay how much I want anytime as long
as I complete the annual premium within the policy year
I also get points from BDO when I pay my premium

I usually pay twice a month.
2.) Estate tax free as opposed to BTID where my investment
is exposed to estate taxes.
3.) Insurance coverage is flexible. I can actually lower my
insurance coverage when I'm say older and I only need
it for funeral expenses or something.
You can't do this with term insurance unless you're paying
big big money for term insurance. Most if not all of the term
products have minimum requirements based on the face
amount (i.e. at least 1M) or based on the premium (i.e.
at least 10k)
I was told by Sunlife that I can lower my insurance
coverage and hence escape the increasing insurance charges
up to as low as 300k.
That's just Sunlife. My other VUL policy can go as low as
5x the premium if I want.
But that's something to think about if you plan to keep
this long term and you expect to have lesser need for insurance.
Not a total lack of insurance.. just lesser.
4.) Cheaper charges overall compared to BTID at age 65.
And this was the only con I identified.
1.) Expensive management fee! 2% p.a. tsk
But thankfully there's the loyalty bonus to mitigate the higher fee.
(I invest in funds that charges up to 1.5% p.a. max so
2% is expensive for me.)