Does anyone actually believe T Type shifts under load better?

yes, you can stand on your derailleur 

Love my eagle 90 on the Levo 

I believe it was Jesse Melamed (correct me if I'm wrong, JM) who said he would shift to the next gear while stationary in the start gate because the shifting-under-load was so good. He would start in a slightly easier gear which allowed him to accelerate up to speed faster and then the gear would shift cleanly and he'd be at the harder gear and in his more ideal power band earlier.

Faster acceleration from a dead stop, reaching ideal power earlier than everyone else in the "everyone else's starting gear", and then shifting out of the "everyone else's starting gear" into the next gear heavier earlier gave him a faster stage start. All of that because of the shifting-under-load capability of T-Type electronic shifting allowed him to keep smashing. Also, saying nice things about your sponsor's product is nice. I think he kept that a secret until after he retired from racing which would give credibility to the fact that it works and is actually effective and not just blowing athlete smoke up a sponsor's ass.

What does that mean for everyone else? For me it's irrelevant. I'm not putting out anywhere near Jesse Melamed Power™ nor am I racing. I see some of the limitations of the stuff I'm on - previous generation stuff - but I'm not currently interested in spending the money to make a step into latest-generation in that department. If the wear life of my current cassette and chain line up with another drivetrain component failure then I'll look into changing the whole drivetrain. Until then, I'm going to be stuck with the shitty old stuff that works really well!

What do you mean by "better?" XTR uses fancy patented Hyperglide+ shift ramps because it's designed to shift fast. Transmission uses shift gates because it's designed to shift smoother under high loads. I currently have bikes with both hanging on my wall, and I think they both do exactly what they claim to do.

If I had to loan one of my personal bikes out to a ham-fisted body builder with big thighs and no idea how to shift, I'd loan him the Transmission bike.

In my personal experience, I think it shifts better under load than it does in the stand.  When I built up my first Transmission bike a couple years ago (XO),  i shifted through the gears in the stand and was like “is this it?” It seemed slow and a bit clunky.  But, when I took it out on my first ride and hit a super techy climb that requires multiple shifts and I only cleaned maybe 50% of the time, I realized what “better under load” meant.  I can clean that climb 90% of the time now.  It also took a little getting used to the slight delay in the shifting, but now I’m used to it and I think it shifts great.  

Having run Transmission (GX, X0, & XX flavors) on ebikes and trail bikes since launch, and run both Eagle AXS and XTR before that, yes, it does what it says.  I have never once had the Transmission mangle a shift, even with full power ebikes under full load.  Yeah, sometimes it will be noisy but it doesn't just munch gears sometimes like Eagle did.  And the durability of the cassettes & chains are an order of magnitude better than XTR at least.  The XX cassette on my current ebike has over 2,000 miles and minimal wear, likewise its chain.  I've never actually fully worn out a Transmission cassette.  I definitely agree with the statement that it shifts better under load than in the stand, to the point where I don't really bother doing the micro-adjust until I'm on the trail.  XTR on the other hand, I wore out 2 cassettes in 200 miles each (replaced under warranty due to ramp teeth wearing down to nubs).

You're right that XTR shifts better than anything else... for a few hundred miles. 

Oh so THAT'S why you made me ride that crap T type...

(jk)

what i noticed the xo cage squeaks slightly while shifting and has harder "chainslaps" than with the gx? Also it didn't shift as smooth to bigger cogs.

had the same problem with two different xo derailleurs. one completely new, one half a season old. swapped the cage from a crushed gx on the new XO and suddenly the noise was gone and shiftet better.

While I think Transmission shifts better than the the GX eagle AXS it replaced on my bike, I felt a bit disappointed with the performance (clunky and loud). Perhaps my expectations were too high.

My experience has been that this is entirely due to the shimano derailleurs (all of them, not just XTR) being made of what I can only assume to be the finest Japanese Brie. I was going through minimum 2 per season. However I agree with OP that HG+ shifts better under load  than transmission (smoothness and speed). 

My solution has been madrone. Shimano XT cassette + XTR chain + madrone derailleur (with UDH stiffener) has been incredible. Stiff, quick, and precise. 

I still have transmission on my eeb and full shimano on my down country bike but I vastly prefer the feel of this combo. 

I'll preface by saying I do not own T-Type but I have ridden it on trail a few times. It shifted really well under load but it still has tradeoffs such as shift speed, size, weight and its own setup complexities. For some riders it's a big benefit - for others it's not. For someone like myself who understands how to "properly" shift, I can get by just as well with my X01 system which is why I made the choice to stick with my existing drivetrain and purchase extras after SRAM's consolidation of the older mechanical drivetrains. I'd like to see more discussion of my thoughts below.

• Is the extremely high cost worth marginal gains while shifting under load?
• Does the modularity of T-Type add to the value proposition, or was this SRAMs way of recognizing that the lack of fore/aft derailleur swing means cages are more susceptible to damage?
• Other than shifting well under load, what else is packaged with that higher cost?
• What do we ACTUALLY prioritize as riders? Bike weight and cost are being heavily scrutinized by consumers with each new product launch and this system is quite the opposite of both.