I'm torn. I live in the suburbs of SRAM-cago. I know a lot of the fine men and women who work for the company and have busted their butts to bring to market what they have.
I was a Shimano guy my whole life then in around 2009 when SRAM really went to war with Shimano and did it by building road groups that were light, inexpensive and durable enough... and local... it became a no brainer. During that time cross was also king and Shimano just didn't do cross very well at all.
Shimano caught back up and didn't slow down. Mechanically Shimano equipment is just so much better in design and manufacture. To me SRAM will always have the feeling of a non-deburred CNC billet piece while Shimano will have the smooth feel of purpose built forgings but enough romanticism.
SRAM wireless is a great feature but honestly one of the only features that keeps them in the discussion. Battery life sucks in comparison. The single paddle bit is a bit of a moot point as now all the Shimano buttons are configurable and you can come up with a similar shift pattern (big buttons on both sides are rear and small buttons front).
During the AXS rollout we were told that one of the founders of SRAM went to Europe on a trip and rented a bike and all it had was Ultegra. He rode it and knew why they were getting their butts handed to them. All that quality in a more affordable price was unbeatable. So they started cramming on AXS design and did the whole Force thing. Did it work? meh.
Then the brakes.....the brakes....oh dear lord the brakes. I hate jumping on the bandwagon and resorting to cheap sots but the SRAM brakes suck. I did a video a few years back on my youtube channel detailing how to unstick your pistons and solve sticky master cylinders that plague the road lineups. It's one of my most popular videos. That should say something. The people who watch and comment on it are mechanics as well. The brake issues are universal.
By contrast the Shimano brakes just seem to work, work well, last forever and hardly ever need maintenance. The only real videos needed on those are the "how do you bleed this one again? I have a new bike build and can't remember"
Running wires is in fact a PITA and can add a substantial amount of money on to a build. I have no fears that will be solved eventually but I also have to say I am a bit of a wire guy. There's a reason Wahoo just "launched" an ethernet wired adapter for it's trainers - it's required by the UCI because the ant+ and BLE signals aren't reliable enough.
If I had to choose today and it was going on my personal bike and I was using someone else's money....I don't know. I might just go AXS because I don't currently have it. If I was on my own and building the only bike I was going to ride for a long time and was using a chunk of my own change that I knew I wasn't going to have available in the foreseeable future to replace items or buy new again then I would absolutely pick Shimano.
Footnote: if I had lottery kind of money and liked to watch it burn I'd go Campy and buy everything including an employee who spent all day trying to import replacement parts.