I think the key thing everyone is missing in your post is that HICAS is supposed to kick in hard when you are about to lose control around, say, a sharp corner, and helps balances the steering to avoid this, but from the sounds of things you weren't going around a tight corner and you weren't losing control (in a bad way) so that's why HICAS didn't kick-in as such.
I personally find the HICAS system to be a supportive system as when I take on corners hard I can actually feel the independent rear wheel steering assist mechanism kick in which, in my opinion, can only help.