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Well this is obviously going to be a controversial topic but I think this issue needs to be addressed

Starting chronologically, a few months to a year (I don't exactly remember when) back, Shiny was changing the KB due to complains from the server of it being completely nonsense. We went to shiny's private server, tested a bunch and shiny came to a conclusion to what KB values are best.

This KB was consistent, while still not maybe being the best to me specifically, but it was consistent. A month or so back I myself felt a change in the knockback and so did many other people. Recently, with the upcoming announcement of the tourney, many teams have been regularly scrimming and I heared many many people complain about the knockback.

Before I start discussing the issue, these are my findings about the KB. I would love yall to go over them and try it yourself to make sure I didnt screw up and made wrong conclusions.
all numbers were measured accurately and rounded to 0.5s to make it easier to understand

KB One hit no W tap - 1.5 blocks

KB One hit w/ W tap - 4.5-5.5 blocks

KB One hit Jump, no W tap - 6 blocks

KB One hit Jump, w/ W tap - 6.5-10 blocks

I concluded the issues with the knockback in bulletpoints below:

1. The grand issue is basically about it being at times random, and
   mostly inconsistent. Example is people recieving literally no
   knockback while holding W (I consider a kb from a hit of 0.25-0.5
   blocks as nothing). An interesting thing about the issue I said above
   is the direction of which the player is holding W doesn't affect this
   problem, which means that if I hold W and run in the direction of the
   player hitting me or away from him, I still recieve little to no KB.
   This creates a problem in many scenarios for example chasing someone
   down a skybridge and attempting to knock them off, or generally
   fighting in a scenario with void. To elaborate more on this issue, it
   creates an unfair situation in which a player should have an
   advantage but they don't get it, such as backstabbing an unaware
   player on a skybridge, doesn't necessarily mean they would get
   knocked off, although 1-2 W taps should be more than enough to do
   that (in Vanilla KB).
   
2. The KB is random at times. The scenarios which I measured basically
   revolve around 2 factors, W tap and jumping. The jumping factor did
   affect the KB in a consistent manner by itself it seemed to have a
   pretty constant effect as the test was repeated up to 5 times (I
   measured the jump kb by hitting a player as precisely as possible at
   the point where they're at the top of their jump height). However,
   the W tap factor was incredibly inconsistent, as you can see in the
   numbers. At times, a W tap would cause a big effect of up to 4
   blocks, and at times it would do literally nothing, both in jump and
   no jump scenarios.
   

These 2 issues cause a main problem and that is being unable to figure out a fighting style. Nowadays most servers don't use vanilla KB and the KB is different for each server up to how they configure it to their gamemode (also in my opinion sumo kb should be different to Pot pvp and that different to OCN gamemodes for example), and that is completely fine and understandable. However the knockback in a certain server should be consistent and not random. Basically, this makes luck a big factor in fights it seems as sometimes people get knocked too far or don't get knocked at all. With this problem ping also becomes more of an issue combined with the random, so it seems, values of the knockback.

I can't tell if the values of the knockback are too high or low because of its consistency. I think now is a good time (not too close to the tourney), to mess around a little with the KB and ensure its consistency for the upcoming tournament. After it becomes consistent and the issues with W holding / tapping are solved, it's going to be a whole lot easier to adjust the values to the majority's liking.

I would love to hear peoples opinions and possible suggestions to fix.

I think the knockback is broken because the server has many versions. If I remember , players who play in updated versions have a vertical knockback instead of horizontal.

I do not know if they tested the knockback with all the versions for example:

Player 1.7 vs Player 1.13

Also because of the knockback, critics are created and this makes the pvp more unfair for people with higher ping.

the kb is not inconsistent. it is people that are inconsistent and nothings wrong with the server, mc pvp has always been like this. like you say you tested wtap vs no wtap but what does that actually mean, do you mean sprint hit vs non sprint hit and if so when you are resetting your sprint how do you time that because thats a skill based thing not everyone is as good at it as others. maybe in the case scenario where you are only hitting someone once it's pretty simple but beyond that its pretty skill based meaning its hard to control for. other things indirectly effect the kb you perceive in actual pvp, that are hard to account for in a one hit test. the individual factors being ping, click speed, where you are aiming on the player, the timing of your sprint resetting, the distance between you and the player you are fighting and other movements to the left and right. none of these factors exist in isolation they all come together to create pvp as we experience it. like people claim its inconsistent but they arent doing a very scientific test. additionally there have been videos like yukkis video which claim kb is inconsistent or broken. one of the key things shown that ppl often point to is that is the two ppl hold w and run into each other and take no kb thing but really thats just minecraft. try it on any other server like MMC and it will be about the same, sometimes you will take very little kb and go through each other, sometimes you will bounce off a bit more especially if you try it with diff ppl . nothing has changed these it's just minecraft. these "problems" have always been around so if nothing has changed about the server, then what has changed? people have changed or more accurately have gotten better and/or have started closet cheating more. to expand on this a bit i think recently a lot more toxicity has been on stratus in particular the "cycle of cheating" basically meaning someone pvps someone, then thinks that person is cheating, then they cheat too to make it "fair". this and the groupthinking that leads people not to suspect their own teammates of cheating, which is basically someone saying something like "my friend would never cheat hes my friend and i know hes just good!!!!!!!!!". to conclude nothings changed about the server stratus and mc has always been this way but now the community is confused a lot more about stuff cuz of more closet cheaters and ppl being better now then they were in the past.

sorry for shit kinda english dyslexia hits hard :/