The whole cylinder barrel is tilted relative to the output shaft and the pistons connect to the shaft flange directly, rather than pushing against an angled plate through slippers. That largely removes the side loading a swashplate imposes, which is the source of the type's efficiency and durability advantages.

Less heat rejected and more of the supplied flow turned into shaft torque, which on a machine working long days shows up as fuel burned and as cooler capacity that need not be installed. On a closed-circuit drive it also means the charge pump has less make-up leakage to replace, so the whole circuit runs cooler rather than only the motor itself.

Size and weight. The tilted barrel geometry that produces the advantages also makes the unit bulkier and heavier than a swashplate motor of equal displacement. On mobile machinery where the envelope decides the installation, that frequently rules it out despite its performance.

Better than most, which matters because a motor lowering a load or decelerating a machine is being driven BY the load rather than driving it. The robust piston attachment tolerates that reversal well, but the motor resists damage rather than holding the load - the circuit still needs a counterbalance or brake valve to control the descent.

Excavator and crane slew and travel drives, winches, and heavy mobile applications generally, where efficiency and torque density justify the size. It also appears in fixed-displacement form where high efficiency at one operating point is worth more than a variable speed range.

Higher than swashplate equivalents, yes - it is one of the type's advantages and part of why it suits slew drives and winches. The actual limit is set by the design and displacement, and should be checked against the duty rather than assumed to be generous.

Yes, and variable bent-axis motors give the widest useful speed range with the best efficiency of any common type, which is why they appear on demanding mobile drives. They are correspondingly expensive and large, so fixed displacement is used wherever the range is not genuinely required.