Dough – Why does the pizza dough rise so inconsistently

You might have better luck with cornmeal or semolina flour on the peel, those have a "ball bearing" quality to them, even in addition to some regular flour on the dough. Be sure your pizza is sliding easily before you move to the oven. Practice the motion a bit with just some plain dough some day. There is a bit it a trick to it, a left to right motion to get it nice and loose, and quick front to back motion to get it into the oven.

Here's a YouTube video, he gets into the peel at 4:30.

If you want to spend the money, this is a foolproof option: EXO Peel, they demonstrated it on America's Test Kitchen. It was really nifty.

Three things:

1. Most traditional Neapolitan pizza dough does not use a pre-ferment - poolish, biga, or sourdough starter. Not to say it may not be good, but it wouldn't the way most are made.

2. Sourdough starters change their flavor profiles by age and by geographical region. In general, I would expect a bit more of a 'tang' from the sourdough starter than from the poolish.

3. Sourdough starters usually don't rise as much - commercial yeast is just in general stronger than its wild counterparts. So a dough made with a sourdough starter may not rise as well.

Between the two, I would prefer poolish over sourdough for a more traditional taste. However, I'd be more likely to try something like a cold starter and super slow rise like a Pain à l'Ancienne in order to promote more natural sugars in the bread which would result in better browning. The primary challenge with Neapolitan pizza dough is the lack of heat in a home oven. Part of the thing that heat does is the browning - hence the recipe that promotes better browning but with traditional ingredients.