Nils

The service point deserves attention on a second-hand bike: they do wear, and a tired one feels weak in exactly the way that makes people think the design is overrated. Worth knowing whether you are judging the mechanism or a worn example of it.

Testing it by hand in a direction you never load while riding is how everyone forms the wrong impression.

Turned it off for a long smooth road ride expecting a noticeable difference and there was not one worth having. Put it back on and forgot about it for two years.

The one time it genuinely matters is wheel removal, where leaving it on makes the job needlessly awkward. Everything else is theoretical.