Huh, I did not know that about TS, I thought they were always using the nodes. I was leaning on the former point (i.e., private applications rather than public internet), I know OpenZiti fabric does optimisation across available nodes by doing 'smart routing'. Interesting idea with the exit node and integrated BGP, not a use case ziti is trying to solve today but its a neat idea that is theoretically possible.
Yep, tailscale definitely will do direct routing between nodes if available and only uses the DERP relays if it can't establish a direct connection. It also uses the DERP nodes to help with NAT-busting, and from what I've heard the tailscale NAT busting is "best in class". I can say that in my situation TS is able to establish direct connections between all my nodes, with maybe a couple exceptions.
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