Hi & Welcome to the Forum.
I've not ridden a restricted xt before, but when I came back to biking 8 or 9 years ago I bought a ER5 off a friend which was restricted. I rode that for a while restricted and it was fine. The main difference after derestricting was all top end. For general day to day stuff it wasn't much different. I would guess the xt would be very simular to that experience. Hope that helps.
