I am sitting here thinking.

With a standard shackle, if I put a jack on the frame close to the left rear wheel and start jacking. The Xterra will lift and the tire will stay on the ground up to the point where the spring has reached maximum droop or the end of the shock is reached (which ever comes first).

If the leaf spring was off the vehicle and you look at the arch, that is the position of the spring with no force on it. So when I started to jack up the vehicle, up to the point where the spring gets to the same arch as with no load, it is providing down force on the tire. Once it's passed that point, the axle and tire are pulling down on the spring until it can no longer flex and the tire will lift off the ground.

In my mind, as long as the tire touches the ground, the tire still has "some" traction due to the weight of the axle and tire.

Now, if you add a revolver to that and repeat. When you start jacking on the frame, the vehicle will go up and the spring will still apply down force until the spring reaches the same arch as with no load. At that point, the revolver will start to unfold and the tire is pulling the shackle open rather and the springs no longer apply down force, up to the point where the shackle is completely unfolded. At that point, the tire keeps pulling down on the springs until they reached their maximum flex at which point the tire will lift off the ground.

As with a standard shackle, in my opinion, as long as the tire touches the ground, it provides "some" traction from the weight of the tire and axle.

I think everybody agrees that a tire that touches the ground must have somewhat better traction than a tire in the air.

My post will never settle your disagreement and also note that I don't have any experience with the revolver nor do I have hard core off road experience. In fact, I still have my rear sway bar connected, so if I wanted better articulation, I'd start with that.

This was just how in my mind the suspension works with and without a revolver.