I had a bike with a Shimano 7 spd. Worked well for hilly urban use and I could not tell a difference in efficiency between different gears, However, the right cone got pitted badly after 10K miles or so, and Shimano being Shimano, there were several revisions of the hub since I purchased it and the part was not available. The pitting got so bad that I broke a ball, and the hub went into the recycling bin. Also, I broke spokes at the rim until I relaced 2x; this is odd because there are lots of similar hubs out there that are 3x with no apparent problems.
I now have a Rohloff bike built as a heavy tour/trekking bike. After 20K miles on it, the sting of high initial cost has faded.