Cheers @mcneese.chad (and everyone else) for the input!! I’d never thought about this from a fatigue perspective until those comments popped up in a few reviews I was watching.
Lots of folks have the htfu attitude (at least externally and/or on forums 
) so I appreciate the thoughtful replies from the folks here.
I’ve heard or read interviews with Lael Wilcox stating that she thinks the e shifting saves a boat load of fatigue over the course of some of the races she does.
@FrankTuna You going 1x with XX1 long cage & 10-52 cassette??
Who am I to argue with Lael Wilcox? Calling her amazing is an understatement.
My plan would be GX Eagle for the derailleur and I’m on the fence about the cassette. I was thinking X01 10-50 or possibly eThirteen 9-50. Totally forgot about the 10-52 
For Shimano, I could see how it could be slightly less fatiguing particularly on long hilly rides where you’re constantly shifting.
I’ve got a bike set up with GRX Di2 2x and another with Ultegra R8000 mechanical. With the Di2, I love just being able to essentially press a button to shift. This is particularly good for when my hands have lower dexterity (typically before my hands warm up on a chilly ride or when I’m wearing bulkier gloves). I also have smaller hands, so needing to swing the entire lever on Shimano mechanical shifters take a bit more effort. In any case, the action on Shimano mechanical systems is super smooth.
On my MTB before AXS I found on long races (100 mile), combined with arm pump I found it increasing difficult with mechanical. Maybe I’m old or a 
but I love ES and will never go back. I’m sure glad I had it for this event. When your go to gearing is 32x42 it’s a rough day.
I prefer electronic shifting. Won’t claim it makes me faster or less fatiqued, but I like not having to worry about cable maintenance and it just works. Trade off is having to worry about keeping batteries charged and shifter batteries fresh (for SRAM). In my opinion, electronic shifting is more reliable and performs better, which translates to one less thing to worry about for me.
I have shimano di2 on my road bike and AXS road force on my gravel, and AXS eagle on my MTB. IMO, shimano shifts better (particularly the front), but the wireless on AXS is really nice. I also like the non-traditional road gearing with AXS (10 tooth in back and smaller front chain rings).
Having the AXS on the gravel bike and MTB make for some nice flexibility. I’ll normally run the 2x force setup on the gravel bike, but can go 1x if a course demands extreme gearing. In under 10 minutes I can swap in my eagle RD, put a 1x chainring on my AXS powermeter crank, and I’m rocking a 1x setup with a 10-52 or 10-50 cassette. I don’t love the big gear jumps with the 1x, but it’s a tradeoff that makes sense on some courses. I have also considered putting my road AXS shifters and drop bars on my full suspension XC mtb for leadville. I haven’t done it yet, but it’s still a possibility. It’s just the pain of dealing with hydraulic brake bleeding, etc. and I’m not even sure the AXS shifters will work with MTB brakes, but I think they will.
