I agree completely that 3.45's shouldn't even exist from the factory as both transmissions have plenty of overdrive to run 4.10s even on a stock sport. The Rubicon only has 1" large tires and comes with 4.10s, all JL's should come with 4.10s minimum in my opinion. I'm glad to see them offering 4.88s as an option.
For lower speeds and back roads up to 50mph, I do think the regearing helped a lot. Prior to the regear, the drop in RPMs between shifts made it so that the engine could not stay in the powerband and would lug in the next gear. Now the gear spread isn't as big and it really makes the engine stay in a better RPM range for both lower speed and higher speed driving.
On the auto it is not as noticeable since there are more gears and the rpm range in each gear isn't as big. However, I really think regearing the Auto has the same benefits. My brother had an auto JL sport and auto gladiator which he regeared to 4.88s. I have driven the auto with 3.45s(stock jl sport), 3.73(Stock JT), 4.88s(regeared JT) and 4.56s(I test drove an XR recently). The 4.88 JT and the 4.56 JL were much improved in driveability over the 3.45 and 3.73 Jeeps. With the 8th gear overdrive, they also worked well on the highway without over-revving.
I wouldn't want our XR to be geared any lower than it is on the stock 35's. I absolutely wouldn't want a stock Rubicon with the auto to come with 4.88s and 33's. In my opinion that's too low. 4.10s on our 2019 were fine even on 37's. 5.38's and 38's was way too low for me. I appreciate the ability to roll freeway speeds at 2k rpm when the load is low enough. The option of 4.88s is great, but I would not want to see them as mandatory. Of course I would probably order them as 37's will happen sooner than later on the '22 XR but that's for someone who plans bigger tires in my opinion.
If nothing else maybe the manual transmission should come with different differential gearing than the automatic.
