You are correct. The landing place is determined by the place that the ST16 is, not the take-off point. However, since I rarely move away from the take-off point during a flight, then it's landing place in the event of a RTH will still be in the vicinity of it's take off point.My understanding was that RTH landed close to the spot where you initiated RTH not the spot it took off from. That's also been my experience. I've only used it a couple of times when first learning the H and its features. It seemed one time that it was going to land on my head so I turned it off and took control.
I totally agree with u I have two h models and never used RTH they are so easy to fly and land I have never botheredIn well over a year of flying a H I've never resorted to using RTH. For me, it is a safety feature that should be used only if necessary. But that's just me. I understand that others may use it as a matter of course and I will not criticize. If you are happy using it then who am I to judge.
However, it is my view that if RTH on the H480 brings your aircraft to you within a few meters, then I would say that is good enough. Unless you are flying from a very tight place then pin point accuracy isn't a 'must have'. So long as you are aware of your surroundings and choose your take off point allowing for any inaccuracies in the RTH, then I see no issue.
Just my tuppence worth.
Not being there at the time I can't say for sure with my hand on my heart, but I think it unlikely it was VRS. VRS is a pretty rare phenomenon with modern multirotors these days, but more likely to happen with a quad than a Hex). The phenomenon was more common a couple of years ago: the early Phantom range, for example. That was largely fixed by dji when they released a firmware update for the Phantom 2 Vision Plus around early 2015 (maybe a bit earlier) which made the aircraft descent more slowly than was previously allowed....<snip>.... A fly away and he didn't know what to do, lost his bird. Landing manually takes a bit more time, but I think it's worth it (especially with that vortex thingy, which I think is what may have got him).