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I've heard a lot of people say that PF suits require more input to fly whereas Tony Suits (maybe Squirrel fits into this category too?) are a little more passive and will fly with less input.

I have a Phantom3 and an R-Bird and I can feel it in the difference between the two suits. When I just relax my muscles in the R-Bird, it still kind of flies. When I just relax my muscles in the Phantom, I still have a little forward speed, but I essentially start falling like a belly flier.

The advantage of a more passive suit is that of course, you can fly for longer without exhausting yourself, but it seems like it's not necessarily a good thing. I think if the suit wants to fly in the absence of input, it might fly when you don't want it to, i.e. when you're unstable and trying to get stable again. I feel like in the R-Bird, it takes a little more work to collapse the wings if I want to, but if I'm ever unstable in the Phantom, it's really easy to just relax and arch (the right answer to every question in AFF), get facing the right direction, then flatten back out, de-arch, and fly.

I've been working on some backflying, barrel rolls, etc lately so I'm starting to notice things like this. I'm curious to know if anyone with more experience on a wider range of suits agrees or if I'm just generalizing too much based on only two suits.

A big part of how a suit flies is how tight wing surfaces, sleeve, fit etc are together with wing profile.

A suit thats in general more loose, tends to fly quite easy, but also needs much bigger inputs to fly agile. As small active inputs result in little response. Where suits that fit like a latex glove, combined with a 'sharp' wing profile, tend to be super responsive, and much easier to fly at any angle, turn, flip or otherwise.

Flying on technique, and using that agility to your advantage (be it in glide, speed, freefall time or acrobatics) is for sure related to design. Where other suits 'fly themselves', my personal preference lies with the more methodical skill based approach that works in both small to big carpet class suits, if designed with the same approach/direction towards agility (or more active inputs, as you describe).

I also believe the more 'agile' flying style (skydiving/acrobatics) is a better basis for any future direction in your flying (be it performance, base or other) than 3 minute planking jumps as 'preparation'. But there of course everyone has different approaches as well. But a good 500 ws jumps mastering your suit at any angle, speed and orientation never hurt anyone, before taking it off a rock.

Between manufacturers there is quite a difference in what qualifies as performance. Some only look at straight line glide, others look more at the agility side of things. Everyone chooses the suit (and thus manufacturer) of their preference. And which one is better or worse usually seems to boil down to personal preference for flying style/technique.