Given you know your vocab and theory, there are 3 layers to perfecting a piece music: the technique you’ve trained, the muscle memory on the optimal mechanics you’ve already sussed out for that passage, and audiation - the former 2 of which are automatic (actively trained for passive benefits) and the latter of which is what you actively think about when you drum. The only active thing you can do while you drum is to play the rhythms perfectly in your mind (audiation), take a rep aiming for that, and take note as you go of the depreciation rate between your mind rhythms and your hand rhythms. Which specific counts / partials pulled or tugged will inform the improvement to be made in your next rep, till it’s near perfect. That is literally all you can do in the moment, and if it doesn’t work, or is painstakingly slow, you know your training isn’t reliable.

Pit an experienced drummer and a new drummer against each other and they’ll really both be doing the same exact thing, stepping up to the drum and trying to play the music - but one of them outshines the other because of their prior training which leads to their subsequent faster improvement rate. Sure, they can both take data from their audiation / depreciation rate in the moment, but the more experienced of the two will have a much more robust process behind upgrading each rep due to the amount of tools in their toolbelt, their practice selecting the right tool for the job, and their comfort therefore ease of use with the (correct) tool they’ve selected. Not to mention the trained drummer stat checks the new drummer in timing & resonance (what I consider the marks of good drumming) on top of their superior (therefore more fun & exciting) improvement process. So the difference between the drummers is not only their trajectory and speed in which they improve but also prior skill, even though in this analogy, they’re both using the same amount of brain power and intention behind their practice time when we observe them side to side.

There’s really not much of a difference between any 2 drummers in skill besides their training. Not intellect or pattern recognition, not reaction time or being able to clutch up somehow, nothing innate, genetic, or otherwise gifted without being earned. An untrained drummer will never hold a candle to its trained counterpart. Either the training is there or the training isn’t there.

The above has been as factual as I could make it, here are some more subjective, nuanced opinions of mine if you want them.