I've been using 1x on dirt for years now and I like it. My hardtail is 1x10 with a 32t front ring and an 11-36 casette and to be honest it's to highly geared for all the climbing out here. I can do it, I have a couple years, but there's more pedal mashing than spinning involved which catches up to you on long dirt rides.
With the new bike's 1x11 it's a 28t front ring with a 10-42 tooth cassette. It give almost the same range as a full 2x10 setup but without redundant gear ratios, a front derailleur, front shifter, front shift cable and housing, heavier crank with multiple chain rings, shorter rear derailleur cage, and more ground clearance (from no big ring to smack into rocks). Realistically it's a simpler, better shifting, lighter, more efficient, drivetrain in exchange for having your highest gear ratio fall just short of a 2x10 setup. My highest gear now I spin out at about going 27mph, you rarely get into your highest gears and that high of a speed hauling through a narrow rocky forest on the side of a mountain so it's the perfect setup for me.
I'm really liking it so far, after 15-20 miles of break in, setup, and tweaking the suspension is really came to life and feels good. With the wide rims, meaty tires, and plush suspension I've been messing with tire pressures. So far the lower I've gone the better it's ridden. I'm currently dropped down to 18psi front and 20psi rear without burping air or hitting the rim and with lots of grip.
I'm still getting used to the bike though, I've never had a full suspension bike, this much suspension, this much grip, this slack of a head angle, or this short of a stem. Aimed down it's fantastic, climbing has a learning curve. With the lightweight front, lower gearing, and short chain stays it's very easy to pop the front end up even when I don't want to. With the geometry and short stem the steering is much slower than I'm used to with steep head angles on XC type bikes. It'll be fine once I learn how to ride it.
As for pedals, SPDs just simply work (especially XT). Crank Brothers pedals are well known to be unreliable shit. Literally every single pedal I've personally witnessed break or have friends that have had issues with have been Crank Brothers. There's even a common running joke that's directions for rebuilding egg beaters, step 1 remove them, step 2 throw them away and install shimanos. Plus we are up to 8 bikes between my wife and I, the TT/Tri bikes have Look Keo Blade 2 Carbon pedals, the rest have Shimano SPD with XTs on our main high end bikes.
