Can you expand on your idea of why you think Shimano doesn't look relevant now? Not to play favorites, but they seem to be the biggest manufacturer of high-end bike parts in the world. On road, every World Tour team, save 3 are running Shimano. Campagnolo seems the company that's becoming irrelevant, with SRAM being second, but doing some interesting stuff.
In my experience, jockey pulleys don't add too much friction, as they're not under a great amount of force and don't fail all that often - for the same reasons. It's the derailleur arm itself that's very likely to take damage from abuse (by bending out of spec).
I would say the use of a clutch on a rear derailleur - something your SRAM 1x most certainly has, leaks more watts (tho v. v. little) - the compromise is certainly worth is, especially for the gear cluster spread you're running on the back.
This design looks just to be an improvement of some sort of clutch system, with purpose to try and move the derailleur arm out from being so low, where lovely things like rocks can hit it. That seems like a win to me, given my own assessment of how these things become worthless paperweights.
SRAM actually seems to be all-in on making rear derailleur replaceable in piecemeal, which seems to be a nice improvement over the design, in a very Right To Repair kinda way.
https://bikerumor.com/next-gen-sram-eagle-direct-mount-derai...
I'm not sure why such a design can't be run wireless if that's your preference. Looking at Shimano's offerings, even the 105 is electric these days.
But again: this is just a patent for an idea - it's not the first time Shimano has done this obviously
https://www.bike198.com/shimano-gearbox-patent/