.

As you said, I think you're going to be fine.

But for the same of over examination, I'll share my thoughts.

I'm imagining the different alignment of grooves to be kind of the same as the difference between doing a snowplow (pizza) stop while skiing compared to a parrellel ski (French fries) one. Often in the latter you will stop after moving a little bit to the side you turned. In your cam, this MIGHT make the lateral forces unbalanced and perhaps pull along the axis of the lobes. The degree to which this would happen is questionable though.

Cams work because of the shape of the lobes, not what's on them. (Otherwise they would all have the same pattern on them.) I'd climb on it.

I'm interested to hear what they say though.

I should add that I'm in no way an expert and am basing my thoughts on common sense.

When Ray Jardine produced the first Friends, he made a mistake in not sizing them to overlap. One day he drove up and called me over to his van, "Here", he said and gave me a handful of cams (with sewn slings, btw, the first I had ever seen).
"Thanks", I said, "what are these"?
"Half sizes", he said.
I thanked him again and asked about the lack of grooves on the cams. "Don't worry about that, the grooves are just for show" was his reply.

Cool story mark! I've been wondering about that. Since cam design does have to do with the friction between rock and metal, I wonder if there is any texture you can add to the surface to make the cam grip the rock better...

My old tcus also have no grooves. Yer gonna die.

Um no your not going to die

Groves, teeth ect ect have nothing to do with holding power of cams what so ever
It's all about the cam angle, quality of the placement .

Everything else is just marketing bullshit and it's another place company's go to shave weight.

Other then cosmetics/ QC I really don't understand what the fuss is about. Go get some milage on them so the teeth wear down problem solved .

Just to be clear, the distributor got back to you, not Totem, correct? I'd be surprised Totem would say the teeth pattern makes no difference when they say in their blog it does help with bite.

Nice looking cams. Every time I see totem basics I want to order some.

It seems like having grooves at right angles might resist rotation and walking a little better?