Ok, we'll split pulse refers to cylinder pulses. When an exhaust valve opens it creates a high pressure pulse. Now if the exhaust valve is just on its way closing and another cylinders high pressure pulse is whizzing past it, some of the exhaust will enter that already empty cylinder. This hurts volumetric effeciency.This essentially steals energy from your turbos turbine and contaminates that cylinders next firing. This is more of an issue in 4cylinders, but applies to 6s as well, but to a lesser extent as the firing orders are better separated. This is not a side note nor should it be underestimated. It robs a lot of power and can cause higher egts. Now I'm not talking about those long equal length convoluted divided manifolds. Equal length is of a lesser bennifit on a diesel vs gasser given the rpms we run. Better to have a smaller volume and less surface area and maximize heat energy to the turbine vs perfectly spaced pulses. Also, even a very lame turbo set up kills an equal length NA exhaust manifold for VE.
Higher rpm. So now when you have the main turbo inlet you can stack up several pulses quickly and then have a slight delay in building another pulse. this is not as effecient as a constant even pressure as it takes more energy to build these higher peaks and some net energy is lost. The turbine inlet begins to choke. In a divided manifold each pulse is separated and does not create such highs and lows. Choking would take much greater flow. Thus at high rpms the divided runs lower backpressure due to pulse division. This is also exaggerated by the next paragraph; faster spool. because the divided housings spool faster, you can afford to run an even larger housing which results in even higher potential flow.
So the turbine requires a certain amount of pressure differential accross it in order for it to act or spool or however you want to describe it. As the pressure in the manifold builds the turbine will begins to spool. A certain volume of manifold will take a given amount of time to pressurize. In a divided manifold each pulse only has to pressurize half the volume. Thus at lower rpms the divided manifold builds pressure more quickly to act on the turbine and spools faster, giving it a lower boost threshold.
The big downside is divided turbos are much much larger physically and the divided manifold are harder to build and are also physically larger in many cases. Not so much in the 6 cylinder, but the 4s definitely are, unless you are fortunate to get a cast piece that's well engineered. So they more difficult and more expensive. Surprise. It's not a surprise actually cus if you have ever looked at a terrible stock manifold and wondered... Wtf? Why would they build something like that? Well the answer usually is smaller and cheaper. This is just the opposite of that logic.
So now I just worked all night, and am no enginer, so forgive my wording but this is my crude understanding.