Sheldon and I disagreed about what 180 degrees meant a few years ago.
The SA 8 speed is about the same price as the Shimano, SRAM 7 speed is about £10-20 more.
The technical drawings of the Nexus show it has labyrinthine seals so there shouldn't be a lot of dirt in there. Reading around the web suggests that a lot of people don't service them and just ride the things till they break. This might make sense if you're paying a shop to repair it as the hub is only about £170. Evan's have a menu style price list but it doesn't list hub gears. I've got no idea how much shops charge for this kind of thing. I'm still toying with the £200 reamer for Brompton hinges but the hinge lasts me about 5 yrs so it might not be worth it. I'd be against the "ride till it breaks" idea because I'd rather crack it open and mend it. My broken SRAM is like that because the driver bearing fell apart. It doesn't seem to be a replaceable bearing but I kept the rest of the hub for spares, I used the left hand cone on a different hub this week.
Could the problem be in the shifter buttons? The only Nexus I've seen for real has a pair of buttons for up/down gear and I suspect it's a wee ratchet of some kind inside it but I haven't looked. A lot of SRAM/SA glitches are down to old dirty cables or drifting out of adjustment.
My friend reports that he hit a neutral spot at 4th once. He has been using it all year and that's the only problem he has had. I suspect it changes between epicyclics but that's just a feeling. He does 30 miles a day and only missed a couple of weeks in the winter because of the weather. Other things went wrong with that bike but his Nexus has been fine. It will be going to Magic Cycles for an oil bath while school is shut. I'm stripping and lubing for much the same reason.
20 years ago I would never have expected to be a fan of hub gears. I think this may have been because they were always fitted on clunky machines like my friend's Raleigh Commando. My single speed Puch was much faster. I don't see me converting any current machines to hub gears, partly for technical reasons and partly because I don't like to trash working pieces of kit. The trike transmission is well away from the wheels and doesn't pick up much dirt. However I also don't think I'll be rushing to buy a derailleur machine again because internal gears are (usually) so reliable and aesthetically pleasing.
Not trashing things which aren't broken is the reason my racing bike has Delta brakes. I know they don't really work but they haven't broken.
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