Yes I guess that makes sense. If I made large purchases after the dividend record date I would consistently miss this. For vhy which has limited capital growth this would be crucial. My out of super etfs where I contributed less but had a greater starting balance, had returns of 10.75 over the same period. I have had an addiction to vhy as it seems cheap for the dividends it returns compared to vas. I have been focused on dividends to avoid having to sell during a downturn to fund living expenses. But recently vas has had very similar dividends and also has had the capital growth.
I've written a few times why I think VHY is rubbish. Basically it buys high and sells low - the index it is based on is a forecast dividend yield type thing adjusted to put caps on sector weights.
When it rebalances, it adds stocks that are forecast to have future high dividend payouts (i.e. by the time it buys them the share price has more than likely risen a bit), and it sells out of stocks that have cut their dividend (those stocks have in all likelihood already been punished by the market). It does this every 6 months, so there could be up to 6 months of missing out on gains or 6 months of pain experienced before it cleanses the portfolio.
An example of this which made me run away from it for good a few years ago was when it bought into BHP at about $30, sold out at $17 and missed the run back up to $30. You basically got smacked twice.
The performance comparison between VAS and VHY bears this out over the last 4 years. No point getting dividends if your capital goes down. If anything, if you bought in back then and kept reinvesting, dividends from VAS would likely be higher than what you get from VHY (I'm going to try and test this, gimme a day to do the maths).