A few thoughts, as the OP.
1. The jury is still out. I'll have the Shunyata in the system most of the week and then swap it out for the stock MHDT cable and see what I notice or don't notice. I hope the cables sound the same.
2. Auditioning cables (and other elements of a system that might have comparatively small, nonetheless potentially important effects on a system) can be tedious. And it seems to me that if that's how we are feeling it might affect our ability to perceive and interpret whatever differences are there. This is one of the reasons why I tend to leave my gear alone for a long time. I *hate* auditioning equipment.
3. So far I can't say whether I *really* hear a difference between the Shunyata Venom and the MHDT stock red cable. At first I was pretty confident I did. Now, I'm not so sure. HOWEVER, this whole exercise has had me researching Venom reviews wherever I could find them. ISTR that in one of those reviews there was a brief explanation of the difference in the design of the Venom to a standard USB cable. It had to do with a "better" separation of the types of conductors, better shielding or some such.
4. A comment about a perceived difference - it seems to me that when the Shunyata is in the system that either A) the noise floor is lower (this doesn't make sense), or B) the system sounds louder (this doesn't make sense either). But when I substituted the MHDT cable back in and increased the volume slightly the differences between the cables went away. This doesn't make sense, but I share this information here in case someone else who is technically savvy can explain whether it's (technically) possible.
5. I don't know why Shunyata discontinued the Venom. Frankly, I find their pricing off-putting, maybe even greedy. They seem to have put behind them the philosophy that they had initially which seemed to focus on providing High Value/"low" priced options for the audiophile on a budget. Maybe that's too harsh on my part, or cynical. Yeah, I can imagine that their power cords and interconnects sound good. But the fact that they've raised the price of entry into their product lines is a big turn-off to me. Having said all that, I have an untestable hypothesis about why they discontinued the Venom USB. It's because it was too good for the money and they realized that they could sell an "improved", re-named USB cable for more money. Who knows? I don't.
6. I'm tempted to buy a selection of those ferrite chokes and just put those things all over my system.
So, for those who are still reading... I'm reminding myself that the destination is not Perfection, but Contentment.
And a comment about reviewers who get paid to do this work - I don't think there's enough money in the world to make it worthwhile. It's too much of a pain...