I’m removing the “accepted answer” because I came across some more data that leads me to believe there’s an actual content solution.
Just like the blueman, I noticed the character in Couch Knights also blends to a very smooth idle if I use the BlendSpace editor to snap its speed to 0. The BlendSpace editor doesn’t use the SpeedLerp from an animgraph. The Couch Knight character’s animgraph doesn’t even do any additional speed lerp, I guess since it’s working just fine with the animations alone. I would like to avoid the extra lerping because it does introduce some amount of skating.
I am hopeful that someone from Epic can help point out the magic that needs to happen. My animator and I can’t seem to figure it out.