In that same 18000 km I had bent derailleur hanger and a di2 failure, both of which I could have avoided by always riding fixed, however on balance having gears would be my choice and and I would recommend to most.
I will not abandon tubes completely, I will keep them on my vintage bikes for nostalgic reasons.
fair enough. I guess in a nutshell my contentions are twofold;
1) that there are shortcomings (with any system) which folk ought to at least be aware of before they take the plunge and
2) that whilst they are certainly not commonplace, there are more 'unexplained incidents' than I'd like to see.
The photo I posted upthread I think shows what happens if you use too much pressure in a tubeless tyre, in an attempt to blow it off the rim. However this experiment was only carried out because a professional cycling journalist had just had this happen for real, on the road, on a new bike under test, as supplied by the manufacturer, at tyre pressures where it shouldn't.
So if this happens (say) to one in a hundred or even one in a thousand users, you might have ninety-nine or even nine hundred and ninety-nine folk reporting (or pointlessly, endlessly, shouting...) positive experiences but there may be a real problem for the remaining unlucky ones. Now if the consequences are slight, it isn't a very great concern. But if the consequences are not slight, then it is (or ruddy well should be) of more concern.
The fit of bicycle tyres on rims has long been inconsistent. For tubeless to work well, it needs to be better than it often has been to date, and there is evidence to suggest that it isn't yet consistent enough. In addition to this there is widespread misunderstanding about what really keeps tyres on rims, even amongst folk who should know better. I believe it is possible (for example) for the benefit of hooked rim beads to be lost entirely in some tubeless setups, yet even manufacturer's data suggests otherwise; they may be correct (on the basis of their testing) but then again they may just have not yet carried out the right kind of tests.