Originally Posted by
RobertUI
I worked as a mechanic at a Bridgestone dealer in 1991 and I seem to recall a LOT of confusion when discussing this with customers. I then recall that many other folks wanted to switch over to the "cool new compact shimano" setup. I definitely remember the sales point being all about the weight savings with smaller cogs, chainrings, and the shorter derailleur cage. Nothing really to add, other than it was interesting.
Interesting! It's also worth remembering that even with the triple crank, the total range of these drive trains was still pretty narrow. The one with the short cage derailleur had 24-36-46 chainrings and 12-26 7 spd freewheel, so the derailleur capacity that you'd ideally want is only 36. The short cage XT DR was specced conservatively by Shimano as a max capacity of 28.