Yes, a nice bike to be sure. And it may well be that they can do things with carbon nowadays that will make it far more compliant than the fully rigid of old. It is also true that it is hard to pass in the technical. I race a lot, and definitely choose my passing points carefully in the tech. However, when I get behind someone that is undersuspended in a difficult section, I often find they are struggling to maintain control and keep a reasonable speed at which they will not be easily passed, while I am simply cruising through. As soon as a wide section is presented, it is usually much easier to blow by them as they try to recover from just hanging on in the technical section.
I guess the question may be whether the amount of energy lost in the tech for a fully rigid ride is balanced by the amount of energy lost to suspension in the easier sections. Clearly, this will vary by the race course. THere is also the unpredicatable factor of whether the lack of suspension causes a crash or induces line-errors that allow significant passing. Add to that the increasing efficiency and lightweightedness of suspension AND the increasing availbility of a remote lockout on just about every brand of fork produced. I think this last point may be the most important of all. Why not have both? Hell, I usually use the manual lockout for any prolonged easy section. The suspension (and or remote) are non-rotating weight as well, so the extra weight is really not so bad.
For the vast majority of racers, you have to add the enjoyability factor as well. Like my buddy said, doing the Test fully rigid sucked…sucked badly. Even a rigid rear end takes a huge part of the enjoyment out of a race (at least for races around here).
The point was also made earlier about what "they" want to sell us. Suspension does seem to offer more to sell than rigids, and if conspiracies are to be believed, the bike makers have so much more to gain by manipulating the market for the next wave of motion control, stable platform, magic valved forks with a whole slew of new features that we absolutely must have.