One thing to note is that “down country” describes a category but each bike solves the problem differently. Some are XC race bikes with longer legs, some are more like trail bikes with shorter travel. They’ll each have strength and weakness.
The personal experience, I have a scalpel SE and it is definitely more the XC race end of the spectrum. Can you race it, absolutely, that’s what it’s for. It is a fast and whippy bike.
The downside is that in terms of trail capability performance envelope, the difference between it and its XC cousin is marginal and there are definitely some black and double black DH type lines out here in Western WA—the kind that are fall-line steep, fairly long and with compound root drops in the middle—that I choose to skip. Could I ride them, sure, as people have mentioned you can ride quite a lot on these bikes but the margin for error on the thing is a lot smaller than on an enduro bike and the consequences are quite high.
I think of this as a small trade off though for a bike that’s fast as hell, but just be aware that you may still want to impose limits on “do all”