Ok the truth is, what I aspire to is to get very good at looping and make of looping my main game, I know I have a good blade and if I stick with it I will be fine. But, my natural shots are short and direct, and those feel slower and delayed with the Darker. When I play with my previous composite blade - sometimes I do- I like how those shots feel, much faster, and with my coach I’m playing very close to the table.
Bottom line as I admitted to many times before, I’m not good enough even for my current gear so buying a new blade would be totally down to wanting to own and try a new lovely object.
So, now, I will ask again, since you still have not answered: when you loop with the Hinoki blade, do you think: "OMG, that feels amazing"?
My guess based on your previous response is that you don't really feel what makes the Darker blade amazing.
And if that is the case, you should think about getting one of these blades:
1) Primorac Off-
2) Korbel
3) Xiom Offensive S
4) OSP Virtuoso Plus
5) Nittaku Acoustic
6) Tibhar Stratus Power Wood
And stick with that while you learn to loop. If that is where this goes, you put the Darker blade on the shelf for when you actually can benefit from what makes it amazing, and you use one of the blades above to learn to loop.
The reason? The blades above will help you learn to loop. But they also will perform well on the direct contact that it sounds like is how you "hit" the ball. In other words, they will perform fine with drive-contact and yet, they will still encourage you to learn to loop.
None of those blades are too expensive. But if you play as you described, a fancy, expensive, composite blade would not really be what you want.
I read recently, someone at a lower level saying they listened to people telling them not to get a fast blade and then finally someone gifted them one, and how nice it felt and how wrong everyone was. To understand how those blades help you develop, you sort of have to be at a decent enough level to understand how a composite blade can hold you back (even if it feels good). A composite blade can feel great when going loop/loop away from the table. But they hinder the ability to develop the touch and feel you need for the more refined contact that you need to get to higher levels. They also cause you to cut down your stroke as a result of their speed. So, you develop suboptimal strokes because the blade does a lot of the work for you and to get the ball to land, you need to cut down on power in your strokes, which can lead to flawed technique. So, even when someone does not realize why they should not use a blade that they think they can handle, that is not always what someone should use.
And, if you cannot feel what makes the Darker Hinoki blade have a "magical" quality, your development would be helped more by one of the blades on that list above. My recommendation: Xiom Offensive S. Inexpensive and excellent.