The downlink will be set to sector mode (as per the other question of yours I just answered !) so there will no beamforming gains.
Upllink MU-MIMO beamforming is still being developed. The 450m currently has a half way measure that has several sets of beamform weights stored. For the case of SM with a known azimuth in an UL slot the best of these weight sets can be chosen to benefit rx power and noise rejection. A new set can be chosen for each UL slot. This works even in 450m limited. To within a few tenths of a d.B. this should be the equivalent of fully beamformed operation but will only work on a single SM per slot.
Don't forget that you can have 30 days free MU-MIMO operation on the 'limited' version. These do not need to be used all in one go. The trial can be stopped and started as required up until the 30 days running time (not calendar time) has expired.
We replaced epmp1000 AP with epmp2000AP: works great gives you more capaciy, more users, etc
We try to use this platorm for shared bandwith customers.
we replaced 2 450i AP (same azimuth) with one medusa: I think this is the best thing avaliable today. We use 450 platform for dedicated bandwith customers, last miles for other carriers, etc.
But, on small sites with low interference we can still can deliver everything with epmp1000....