The main downside is the lack of headtube slackness and longer travel option for the fork (130).
to me that matters a lot on the occasional steep stuff, and the not so occasional chunky downhills in XC-marathon races in the Rockies. But if that doesn’t matter to you, go full race bike I would say. coming from your current setup though, you may not realize it yet, but that trail bike might be doing a lot of work at the moment that you’ll only realize when it’s missing from your XC-racer
If I were you, I would just demo a XC bike on one of the stuff that you consider challenging.
Go real racer, not downcountry. Like a epic World Cup or something…
Generally the reason to go with true race bike (flex stay, small shock) vs something a bit more generalist is the suspension feel:
Do you want something very poppy and lovely vs something that absorbs more and gives you more traction.
Knowing that this is all on a spectrum.
And there there is the rest of the build kit: minimalist brakes vs something more powerful, short travel dropper vs long travel, and fit: shorter, more upright position vs longer lower cockpit.
But, yes tires will always be the biggest difference. There is easily 40 W difference inrollend resistance ventwegen a race and trail tire. Then there can also be 200-500 grams of weight per tire. So, the race tires will roll faster and accelerate much quicker, and feel livelier in direction changes.
Conversely, a good trail tire will give you way, way more traction, a calmer, glued to the ground feel and of course, be a lot less likely to puncture.
I agree, I definitely need to find a way to do that over the next year to really understand what I’m looking at here.
After riding my younger son’s Revel Ranger (v2) I swapped my trek “trail” bike for the ranger v3. A deliberate choice for a faster, tighter ride with great “feel”. I’m down with downcountry.
I’d never go back to a hardtail, though - suspension has come too far to go back to bouncing the rear wheel off things (except when you mean to do so).