Originally Posted by dddd

I'm willing to bet that 90% of the naysayers to DT shifting have not ever ridden a DT-shifted bike having both a Shimano Uniglide freewheel (or cassette) and a "UG Narrow" (or succeeding HG50/70/90) chain. While there are other DT-shift options that work extremely well, there are/were many bikes from the old days which didn't have the right combination of pieces to make DT shifting such an effortless task as it can be.

Properly set up, a DT friction-shifted bike doesn't need fine-tuning to work well on the road, since the rider almost effortlessly selects gear position by feel and by sound.
This is helped by the tactile feedback of a quickly-engaging chain/sprocket combo which affords larger "windows" of lever movement (within which solid and quiet transmission occur), and by the very short length of control cable that suffers from almost no elastic "error" between shifter and derailer.