Squeaker101
Ultimately, I would say that a faster recovery is more important than a faster start up speed. If you're projectile trading with Liu for instance, who has a faster projectile to begin with, he's going to have time to send it out and block. While Quan will just be standing there eating the fireballs.
Quan can't skydrop on him, either, and if Quan decides to attempt to send out a skull from full screen Liu has ample time to respond with an armored EX flying kick and put Quan in the corner where his normals are going to out prioritize him.