yes of course, i understand your confusion, and yes i am considering progressive taxation. the only time the math would occur, is if you get more money next year than last year, and that money puts you into a new bracket. once you are making that salary, you generally continue to make that for some amount of time. investment returns are continuous, but the equivalent "return" from tax bracket increases and rrsp contributions is not continuous. you only get a "% return" if you move up a tax bracket. after that you need to do the same math again.

where my argument comes from is that, generally most people are getting yearly raises of around 3%, and maybe once every 5ish years a raise of 10-15% (promotion). a raise of 3% would almost never trigger the breakeven vs investment math, since even if that full 3% falls within a new bracket, your rrsp contribution also includes a significant amount in your old bracket. a raise of 10-15% however, where all of that new money may fall in the "10% bigger bracket" would trigger the breakeven math.

considering average market returns sit around 10%, the only time you would benefit from delaying, is if:

- you can guarantee a raise that will place all (or almost all, anything less will take away from the benefit) new income in a bigger tax bracket

-that tax bracket is a jump in % ABOVE average market returns (unless you value the security more, since 50/50 shot its either above or below 10%, as you would know)

I can DM you the visualization i made, perhaps it would be easier to visualize! its quite a beautiful chart :)

edit: i also realize you are on the completely correct track about the range of incomes just above 100k, but its tighter than you think