Those first pics of the F1 gear box looks exactly like a bike transmission, shift drum and all.
If your talking equal length, many OE's run it, GM pretty well had every FWD car with power with them, most import V6's have them and I've seen alot of Fords in the last 10-15 years have them, auto's as well as 5 speeds. My customers 1999 Sienna even has them.
Yeah, they went to a solid chunk, probably cheaper to make.