Used my eGR for the Cheaha Challenge in Alabama this weekend. 100mi with lots of shifting because it was 9300ft of climbing. Shifted 2,323 times and spent an embarrassing number of hours on the bike (first time doing a century AND first time doing anything even remotely close to that much climbing), but the battery dropped 27% (from 100% to 73%). I'm officially no longer worried about battery life of this setup. Now to throw some real gravel riding at it, since this was all road riding...

Yep the ten tooth thing is super overblown. That cog is for down hill any watts given up are gravity assisted watts. If you are in that cog on flat ground buy bigger front rings.

Hell I run a e thirteen 9 46 on my gravel rig but that 9 tooth is for down hill only.

An inferior design is an inferior design. And speak for yourself. I have a 52/36 and i routinely use the 11T at the back on the flat, once i'm going above 40kmh. And given i use the bike on steep hills too, i don't want to run 53/39. And i'm not going to swap cranks between flat and hilly days.
Sram's small cogs and small chainrings are mechanically an inferior design, plain and simple. Doesn't mean they dont work adequately for most. But it's a new design that's worse than what it replaced. aka, an inferior design.
Flat top chains suck too, zipp lost their edge so long ago that nobody's talking about them anymore, batteries that last a fraction of shimano's.
Sram engineers are the goats of poor engineering. They do however have very strong marketing.

when they come out with shorter options, I'm probably in

It's a lot more expensive on ali and looks like a rebadged cybrei

If by "looks like a rebadeged cybrei" you mean it is a carbon fibre crankset then yeah, I guess it does. In the same vein it also looks like an Elilee or SRAM or Rotor crankset.

there have been a few posts on here recently about that. 1 guy on a vb 218 3d printed little rubber things to allow him to use aero bars, and he got a metal shop to cnc cut him a metal plate with various holes to dial his fit.
there's also another post about aero bars that clamp on foil shape bars, made of 4 clamping bits, from aliexpress. Maybe in the aliexpress good findings thread?