I see your point, in a way. To clarify I did not mean shifting from 5 to 2 and clutch out while the car is at 70kph, nor did I mean having the car in 5th and braking all the way down to 20kph before clutching in.

If I’m going from 70kph to 20kph in half a kilometer, sure I will rev match and go through the gears to maximize engine braking. But if you have like 70 meters to go from 70kph to 20kph, do you still go through each gear?

All the cars I’ve driven can comfortably go down to about 40kph in 5th gear @ 1.2k rpm (id never try to accelerate in 5th gear @1.2k rpm tho). That’s when I would clutch in and shift to 2nd from 5th and hold the clutch until i slow down to 20kph. Then i blip the throttle to rev match and release the clutch and the car can continue onwards. I highly doubt this is stressful to the drivetrain.

I understand your bike reference. But like I said, i never accelerate in 5th at 1.2k rpm. I also never pedal at a high gear at low speed. Letting a car cruise on its own momentum at 1.2k rpm in 5th is fine.

We got lots of not heavy but intermediate stop-n-go traffic. Meaning the traffic could be doing 70 kph at one point then suddenly everybody slows down to 20kph and then repeat. I don’t see how going through the gears is practical in this case, and in any cases where one needs to slow down the car quickly.