We're certainly seeing this, LongChalk.
DS1, highly intelligent, apparently high functioning, able to have the right sort of conversation with the right people. Mute with strangers, though. It would actually be lovely if he could have any sort of conversation with a bus driver, since he loves buses. His anxiety is such that he can't even bring himself to post on a local enthusiast forum, though. Many of its members are at the high functioning end of the spectrum and they all have day to day difficulties of some sort, though some are a lot more self aware than others.
We struggled long with mainstream until year 5, because we had no other viable option, before then.
DS2 is 10 and was non-verbal until a couple of years ago. His speech is coming on in leaps and bounds. In fact, he's started to put words together, so today, on one of our outings, we had "Diamond Bus" and "Green Bus" and all manner of imaginative next stop announcements. The next stop was grandma and granddad at least a couple of dozen times 
Being able to take them both on the bus has made school holidays so much better (if quite expensive as buses here are not cheap), though we went through a rough patch during the winter when it was impossible because he'd either be scrambling to get to the bell pushes or screeching at his brother, trying to get a reaction from him. Unfortunately, the DDA requirements which came into force for single deck buses, this year and which will apply to double deckers from next year mean that it's virtually impossible to avoid a bell push on many modern buses. Bloody typical!
We have noticed, in the 2 years that he's come out of his shell, that his anxiety has increased, though. He's also getting bigger and harder to manage. I looked up to see what was on the screen that he was looking at, this afternoon and he quite forcefully pushed my head down again because he didn't want me to look at it. Not nice, since I have arthritis in my neck. When he's anxious, he's really quite intense in his goading of his big brother, who his hard to keep calm, unless I point out that, if he wants to go out to xyz on the bus, I need to be confident that he's able to keep his cool. It usually works, but sometimes he's gone beyond the point of no return and he's terrifying when that happens.
I don't hate autism, per se, but it doesn't half make life complicated. DS1 sometime decides he hates it. He also hates having to take medication to control his ADHD. It's a demand made on him and demand avoidance are his middle names, it tuns out.