Good questions @JetSpiegel! Prompted me to search for & read the SCRAM wiki page. Found the answers there. SCRAM helps by adding independent checks on server i

Good questions @JetSpiegel! Prompted me to search for & read the SCRAM wiki page. Found the answers there. SCRAM helps by adding independent checks on server identity and channel security. So: if you 100% trust the TLS CA, cert, and implementation then indeed, nothing gained. But 100% trust is risky in cyber security...