The bike should rev quickly. You may have restricted/clogged PAJ 1's and PAJ 2's and maybe even obstructed main jets. The bike is old, it's probably been sitting for much of its life, it's not uncommon to have dirty carbs compromising the performance. There are many threads, including 'stickies' in the carb section that can help you to try and clean them, but if the problem persists, you need to remove them, disassemble them, and clean them, most-likely in carb soak solution, or an ultrasonic cleaner. Look at the banner ad on the site for 'dannymax's' carb service, and you'll also notice from reading any 'dirty carbs' threads other members' names get mentioned, (Sean) Morley's Muscle (banner ad) and CaptainKyle, all of whom can clean your carbs if you find they have problems and cannot do it yourself.
When you run it hard from a standing start, in 1st gear, and change to second, when it hits second, it should surge forward with authority, rev cleanly, and break nearly every speed limit there is by the time you hit 9000 rpm in second. This should only take several seconds as-in a 0-60 mph time of say, 3 seconds. If you are not an experienced rider, this is not something you should be doing! The VMax has in its unrestricted state about 74 ft. lbs. of torque. That's enough to make the front wheel pull off the ground in first or second gears, and to spin the rear tire freely, if you happen to be on a wet surface road, or sometimes on a dry road!
You said you hear the controller for the VBoost operating, you should be able to see the wires that open/close the VBoost move with the airbox off.
Idle rpm : 1000
What exhaust do you have? If you have a Cobra exhaust, typically four separate exhausts, it looks cool, but you're costing yourself 10% of your max HP. A stock VMax on a Dynojet dynamometer makes anywhere from 105-119 RWHP. That's a range, of course, well-documented by road tests over the years. So, let us say, your bike in stock condition made 109 RWHP. The Cobra 4-into-4 exhaust will flow poorly-enough that your bike won't even be in triple digits for rear wheel horsepower! Since most people buy a VMax for its power characteristics, and the appearance, if you lean towards the 'appearance' side, the Cobras look cool. If you lean towards the 'performance' side, stay-away from them! If you have them, and you want to regain your HP, you will have to at-least replace the stock exhaust, or go with an aftermarket exhaust. Using the stock double-walled headpipes and slip-on exhausts from any number of manufacturers has been shown time and time-again to do nothing for adding RWHP. They just give you a different appearance, and are less-expensive to replace in the event of a spill.
Being in Canada, you might put out a request for someone close to you to take a look at it, and to give you an opinion on whether or not it's operating correctly.