The slide was intended to lead from being in a dive to dive jumping, similar to Super Mario Sunshine's dive. It's creates a sort of high risk/high reward situation when it comes to beating your personal best time on a level. Though admittedly, there isn't a reward system in place to entice the player to complete a level faster right now. I will definitely look into either adjusting the slide or creating more situations where you would want to use it. Thanks!