Ok, here's my opinion on the comments made:

1. I don't see that putting light pressure on the shift lever prior to actually shifting gears is going to help or hurt the smoothness of the shift. I think you're just paying more attention to the shift process and what your doing when you finally do shift. It took me a while to get used to my S2000's transmission when I first got the car. It's got a much tighter and precise shift mechanism than what I was used to. I'd doing much better now!

2. Putting the pressure on the shift lever itself does nothing to the clutch. The only way you put abnormal wear on the clutch is by riding the peddle or slipping it more than needed on starts.

3. Also putting pressure on the shift lever doesn't do anything to the synchros themselves. The synchros are there to match internal shaft speeds while in the "process" of shifting gears. Until you actually push in the clutch and move the shift lever, the synchros aren't doing anything.

4. The parts you "will" be putting added wear and tear on while applying pressure to the shift lever prior to actually disengaging the clutch and changing gears, are the shift forks. The shift forks are the parts that you move with the shift lever and consequently, physically move the synchros while changing gears.

I don't know how prone the shift forks are to this kind of wear and tear but they do have a limited wear life like any other part of the transmission. Someone mentioned preloading the shift lever on a motorcycle. You'll wear the equivalent parts in the bike transmission with the technique too. It's not a good idea. Actually, from what I've seen in my S2000 shop manual, the S2000's transmission has more in common with a motorcycle transmission than we might think.

If you're just putting a "very" light pressure on the shift lever, you're probably not doing much harm but this is a practice that I wouldn't recommend getting into a habit of.

JMO!

Drive Safe,
Steve R.

Edit: BTW, I've seen motorcycle transmissions fail in as little as 15 to 20k miles due to the rider applying pressure to the shift lever while "not" shifting.