If you have the capability to analyze what's coming out of the remote with a scope or other instrument, then you don't need a base station, and it may be possible, depending on how you're testing, to observe the latency differences between IR and RF output. Even in a perfect situation without any software/hardware issues, RF will never (can never) be as fast as straight IR. There's an additional translation layer (transmit AND receive) introduced, which inherently adds some, even if minimal, latency to the entire process.

There are a lot of variables at play here, but in any case, regardless of how many MX-980's one has in the field, I would not expect that many, perhaps even most consumers would notice the difference one way or the other. Most people aren't going to notice problems that aren't extremely obvious. ie. Most people have no eye for small details. And as CI, I would expect that these installs were finished so that glaring issues would not be present.

None of this changes the fact that the remotes and base stations/master controllers have these issues. I was a professional software and hardware tester for years, now I design and develop the same. If I mention an issue like this, especially in public, and it is confirmed by historical data and current observation by third parties, you can be sure, 100% sure, it exists and able to be reproduced as outlined.