55 yr old male... I have been into FPV from 2018. This is the ULTIMATE hobby. It sometimes can be a brain bender, but this is the only hobby that I can say I will be sticking with for the rest of my days. I have micros to 7-inch-long haul quads. I also am into fixed wings.
That definitely sounds like the ESC is the issue. I would assume this was a Blheli_s ESC. You could try flashing to Bluejay vie ESC Configurator https://esc-configurator.com/ to see if a bad settings. But I think you new new ESC.