Is Shimano’s Rapid rise dead in the water? It appears that a RR mech is cheaper than a standard version but I’ve a couple of questions.
Will it melt my brain if I use it with a set of standard shifters and reverse the polarity as it were?

Use RR on all my geared bikes. Only time I had problems was when I had some one way and some the other.

With multi shift shifters it makes more sense to me to have them working RR than not, tbh.

I usually service a mate of mine’s bike for him, but he’s been told I’m never doing the gears again unless he replaces the rapid rise mech. It left me a broken man 🙁

What wwaswas said.

Park tool site explains differences in gear setup technique.

I had one on one of my bikes and normal on the other bike. Was forever shifting in the wrong direction… have aligned both bikes to normal rise now!

A must with flippy shifters.
I like.

Used RR for a few years and actually preferred it to standard. Switched back eventually though as I bought a new bike and forgot to ask for RR – one bike RR and the other normal was too much for me.

Takes me a couple of shifts each ride to switch between the two systems in my head, but I actually prefer RR.

I much prefer normal rise as you can slam 3-4 gears down in one movement if you hit a big hill suddenly rather than 4 clicks.

if all your bikes are not the same then yes your brain will melt !

I don’t think RR will continue as I believe it doesn’t work with shadow mechs

I have it on my road bike (xtr mech) – seems more intuitive to me that the sti big lever makes a higher gear on both sides. I suppose the same “feeling” may be true on mtbs but I use either single ring at the front or else a LHS gripshift anyway, so irrelevant.