Even though both are full 531c, they feel different, as one feels lighter and more refined, as if more time was spent on making it? Though both are of a good quality build. The lugs seem nicer? They are not fancy lugs, but they seem lighter and nicer somehow?
I think both bikes have similar frame angles as handling feels similar.
The only real way to discover what makes some bikes nicer than others is to ride them, as computers may find more efficient ways but computers don't ride the bikes and feel what the bikes feel like to ride.
I know that when on a day where one place I worked we would all meet, so heads of bike departments and some staff from stores all round the UK and Northern Ireland met up with manufacturers, the manufacturers were watching me test ride their bikes and were interested in my conclusions. Others just rode and didn't really put he bikes through their paces to really get to feel how they ride. A few just messed about doing wheelies etc. But the manufacturers watched me, and I told them which bikes I liked and which bikes were not so good. I was honest, and one particular make stood out and their bikes were cheap budget bikes BUT they had such good acceleration and they rode so well! They claimed to be British, but I knew those frames were made in Bangladesh, and those £120 and £130 steel framed rigid mountain bikes... Well, the only bike that performed as well as them was an aluminium hybrid costing £600 which was not cheap in them days, and even the cheap mountain bikes felt they had better handling. Yes, the cheap bikes had cheap plasticky parts BUT it was their frames that gave them their ride qualities! I rode a bike a lot more expensive but it felt sluggish, and it was supposed to be better... It had more expensive parts, but the frame felt dead. Yes, other makes selling at less than £200 in them days expected to feel dead, but those Bangladesh built framed bikes felt lively and ever so well balanced. I didn't want to get off!
But your question about feeling them in a lab. I honestly think they need to be ridden outside? Not sure, as lab conditions are usually on rollers or similar which may not give the full picture.
Thinking of the lively or the dead feeling with bikes, and thinking in particular of various steel framed bikes as a simpler comparison, dead feeling bikes flex their bottom brackets in a way that absorbs energy as the return of the flexing is timed wrong so it energy saps instead of providing energy return. Is about making a frame that flexes and springs back at just the right time. Some manufacturers stiffen the bike so it has less flex, but that just feels like a somewhat quicker dead bike.
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