I mean, doesn't the set of computer controlled individual motors completely and totally contain all scenarios presented by a locked differential?
Specifically, wouldn't one line of code that says "never ever ever turn this wheel faster than this other wheel" be totally and completely indistinguishable from having the wheels on the same axle, as far as the physical world is concerned?
You can measure the speed and adjust the power going to the motor if you go over or under that speed. The lower latency that this cycle has, the better, but it can never go to zero like with physically connected wheels.
Maybe so but what does that have to do with anything?
A physical axle can have both wheels break free too can't it?
Comparing apples to apples the only scenario you're concerned with is where one wheel breaks traction and the other doesn't. Why is a logically driven exact speed match between wheels inferior to a physically linked speed match between the wheels. Explain the difference practically speaking.
You said "totally and completely indistinguishable".
Practically, electric motors can't generally transfer torque from one wheel to another like you can with locked hubs. (The only exception would be where your battery is underrated to provide sufficient power to both motor to maximize their torque)
Pedantry: The speed of sound in steel is about 5100m/s, so a solid 2m axel will still take about 4µs for interactions to propagate from one end to the other.
Specifically, wouldn't one line of code that says "never ever ever turn this wheel faster than this other wheel" be totally and completely indistinguishable from having the wheels on the same axle, as far as the physical world is concerned?