I have an Ironwood and I have an R-T Bull. My Ironwood works as advertised. As for my Bull, my app alarms do not function and some percentage of other users are experiencing this issue. It's not a problem for me because I was already used to using third party vendor thermometers for monitoring my pit temp and food temp. But some other folks were wanting to rely solely on the Bull's advertised alarm functionality and they have a right to be quite upset (think of doing overnight smokes).
Both of my lids leak. The difference is how R-T responds to that complaint: they openly share that their units will leak around the lid and they are not intended to be sealed units.
I don't know what number of Traeger users experienced connection issues during their recent firmware updates. Oddly, my unit never missed a beat. The update performed automatically and I never had to touch anything to get it going again. But it's obvious from reading other threads in this forum that some users were having fits after the update.
Here is something interesting: I see smoke coming out my Bull's smokestack 100% of the time. On my Ironwood downdraft unit I get a sore back from bending, stooping, and searching for TBS (thin blue smoke); I see a very faint hint of smoke on occasion. But in the end I get the same flavor on my food regardless of which unit I'm using. Psychologically, though, I prefer the Bull because of the visible smoke volume.
