It occurs to me that gear housing is probably unnecessary for front shifting; brake housing should be accurate enough for any front shifting system (especially given the absence of a moving loop), and would likely deliver a better feel.

Shift housing feels kind of dead when you compress it (compressionless is such a misnomer), compared to brake housing's springiness... brake housing has less hysteresis, so it may actually be more accurate in this application, at least until you turn the bars past 30° or whatever.

You could probably do away with shift housing entirely on a SRAM bike; the longer cable pull would tend to drown out noise from the housing, and what there is of a RD loop doesn't move.

I'll try to perform the experiment one of these days.