It has nothing to do with sheer weight and everything to do with the thrust-to-weight ratio.
Saturn V was slow to liftoff because the launch configuration had a very low thrust-to-weight ratio, IIRC about 1.1
Saturn V was slow to liftoff because the launch configuration had a very low thrust-to-weight ratio, IIRC about 1.1
And yeah, sheer weight definitely has something to do with the thrust to weight ratio. It's half the equation.
Going to the moon means extra hardware on top, which means more fuel, which means lower TWR at launch.
If you're just going to drop a 6000kg bomb on earth somewhere, you need a lot less rocket on top of that first stage, and it's going to take off a lot faster.
Anyway, I think we've gone off track from the original point, which was that full size launch vehicles taking off slow isn't because of gimbals vs. fins, it's because they're big and heavy.
We can be pedantic and say it's specifically because of a low T-W ratio, but the T-W is low because the weight is high and it's not practical to build a massive rocket engine to increase it.