Thanks, I investigated, it seems the ath10k driver I am using which is the one enabled by default in 19.07 does have the aql feature set within the driver, however it isnt the smallbuffer driver which has to be installed manually.
Reading that thread (I havent read every post) indicates its not just the feature set, but the actual tuning which you have mentioned. It is in the upcoming 20.x release. So looks like will be the default moving forward.
I should clarify the speed variance is primarily dependent on what room I am in rather than small movements, I would expect walls and such to affect the signal strength. I dont get the issue that has caused some people to need to use the smallbuffers for stability, the aqm stuff looks very interesting though so may well upgrade to 20x when its fully released.