OMG. You lost me with all the tech talk. But glad to have opened up this issue!
Bottom line: I bought the Shifts, they're cheaper from Europe, and I'm currently selling my Dynafits. Wish me luck! And I'll report back!!
jcat,
I was going to add my support for the Shift's, but doesn't really matter so much as you've gone ahead and bought them. For what you want to do with them, then I think you will be very happy with them. I've always been a bit weary about jumping straight onto new tech myself and I have to admit I was a little nervous about trying something so revolutionary (might be a strong word but as others have said, I think this binding will be a game-changer and could make frame-bindings obsolete) and it looked like it has a lot of plastic in it.
Well, I've been on that binding all winter and then this summer too and I can honestly say I am very impressed by it. They've held up well to a lot of skiing and touring and general abuse from travel and have showed no signs of wear. That "plastic" I was concerned about, is infused with carbon and is very strong. I thought I might lose that lever on the front (caught it in a few trees in Japan and didn't rip the thing off) but it stayed on. The stay on when I need them to in downhill mode and release when I need them to. Transitions are quick and they tour well-enough. I didn't have a problem with only 10 degrees of rise, that forced me to keep my skin tracks more undulating and I don't think that's a bad thing.
Please also note, that this is arguably not a binding in it's first season of use. According to the CO agent for Salomon, the binding has been in it's commercial form (unchanged) for the last 2 seasons and it's had a lot of solid skiers try them out. I believe (don't quote me on this as someone else might have different numbers on this), but when I asked the agent about how many pairs of bindings were out in the field last winter, he said it was around 400. That's a decent user pool (both in quantity and likely quality).
So the same binding will be on sale for the upcoming season and this will be the third season of use, though it will obviously be it's first commercial season of use with a much-bigger user pool. We'll see what happens when it is released to the public, but I personally, was very happy with them this season and will be skiing on them again in 2019. I look forward to hearing your thoughts to them when you've skied on them. Enjoy!
- Matt