Roaming depends on the clients having well-functioning roaming implementations as much as the AP's.Well I think you're spot on. I enabled smart roam through CLI, and at values above 5, devices will constantly bounce between the two APs. Even at low values there are some difficulties with disconnects. Overall I think I get better performance and results with just one AP which is disappointing. My goal was to have an AP on opposite sides of the house since it's more elongated and hopefully improve my wifi outside. I may have to nix the idea. I assumed that ruckus would provide a better experience than say consumer related equipment, but I guess my expectations are too great. No idea how Linus from LTT has so many Ruckus APs in his house and has any reasonable experience on it.
Smart Roam however has no Client dependency and the AP simply cuts off a client and refuses to allow reconnection if below a specified connection strength. The client has no forewarning or list of other AP's to immediately shift to, so several seconds of disconnect ensue.
802.11k and R are more dependent on your device doing the right thing in combination with the AP giving suggestions.
802.11k - helps devices search quickly for nearby APs that are available as roaming targets by creating an optimized list of channels. When the signal strength of the current AP weakens, your device will scan for target APs from this list.
802.11r - When your device roams from one AP to another on the same network, 802.11r uses a feature called Fast Basic Service Set Transition (FT) to authenticate more quickly.