Yes... RTO is an instantaneous measurement, taken only when a reliable packet needs to be sent measuring the time between when the packet was sent and when an ack for that packet was received. This includes time in the various queues, serialization, delay across the link, time in various inbound queues, processing time at the remote router, and all the queues, serialization, and stuff, on the way back. So, this doesn't measure delay through the link, or anything like that.
It's also measured across a relatively small number of packets, just reliable EIGRP packets sent to the single peer. Results can vary widely depending on how many reliable packets have been exchanged between two routers, the processor state on both routers, queue state on both routers, link state at that moment, etc.
It's not at all unusual for two routers to have dramatically different across the same link, or for two neighbors peered with each other over two links to have dramatically different RTO's. The SRTT should, probably, be closer, but there's no guarantee of this, either.
The RTO and SRTT are not used in the metrics in any way, and hence don't impact load sharing. The only thing they impact is the amount of time a router will wait before retransmitting a packet which has not been acknowledged.
HTH.
:-)
Russ
