"gave up" and took it to my LBS. First off they said the chain was worn beyond worn. THey checked the hanger alignment said it was dead straight, and also fine with the goatlink.

BUT the RD knuckle was tightened too far back, and the full-length housing was too short (sharp bends). While he was changing that out I popped over to the store. When I got back he said "well it's still not shifting amazing" and he wanted to swap some crankset spacers around to improve the chainline. They initially said they'd knock it out on the spot, I had been planning to drop it off, so no worries, I'll get it back in a few days, and I'm looking forward to some amazing shifting!

Poway Bicycle Shop FTW!

I took the worn chain home and measured it against a steel ruler (don't have a chain checker (obvs)), 12 links was almost 3/8" stretched!

The chain actually visibly couldn't sit on the chainring it was so bad.

Prolly that has some effect on shifting quality...

Still don't have the bike back yet, I might call see how their doing tonight

Did not read through every post, but you realize with a chain worn that badly you are almost certain to need a new cassette at the least and possibly new chain rings.

Yah, I converted a bike to 1x with a superwide cassette, so chainring and cassette are both new. I should have thought to replace the chain with them, or at least check it.