I think generally, yes, you should shift close to redline to maximize gearing and torque (and thus acceleration).
The goal is to maximize torque at the wheels, which is a function of the transmission and gear ratio. You almost always get better numbers at redline. It may seem like a complicated analysis to analyze torque values, but it really isn't that tough if you have a dyno sheet and know your gearing ratios.
If you crunch the numbers, it's pretty apparent that you have a net positive by shifting later. The graph below (from my other car) illustrates this. If you have a normal dyno graph (one that peaks at some RPM and then gradually drops), any shift will drops you to a lower RPM where the gearing and torque values are lower than where you were pre-shift. This means you shouldn't shift early.
Note: this leaves being nice to your engine and transmission out of the equation.
Yellow box is max HP. Torque is relatively flat.
Light green is max torque @ RPM [~280]
Orange is gear down location [i.e., shift from 8200 in 1st results in 4500 in 2nd, 5900 in 3rd, 6300 in 4th, 6800 in 5th and 7000 in 6th]
Yellow is Max HP @ RPM [373 @ 7300]
Blue shows where two gears overlap in terms of Torque. But this is not an illustration of where to shift. If you shifted at this point, you would drop to the light blue box in the next gear and lose Torque.
In the first column, you can see how shifting may move you into a lower engine HP range, but you can't really look at this independently of gearing.
-td
