This is from a Cisco router. Will it grade as high grade telecom or something else? Thanks

I'd call it high peripheral, based on Boardsort's example in their price sheet.

The difference I’m seeing is the board I have has two gold corner tabs and no transformer which I would think would improve the grading.

You are correct, but there are some heavy modules on either side of the board. I wish these type of boards were high grade telcom consistently because I have several to classify. It might bump up into low grade telcom.

High Grade Telecom is for very high grade boards, usually having a lot of IC chips, gold pin connectors, etc. and little junk weight from large capacitors, steel, unpopulated areas or not populated with valuable materials.
https://boardsort.com/telecom.html

Here's another great post on the differences between hi/low grade telcom.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20773&hilit=+layers

Will removing some of the heavier capacitors, etc potentially allow boards to upgrade? Or, trimming dead weight portions off of boards that are chip heavy on one end and not the other?

Peripheral grade.
Unless you can conjure a denser chip population, removing the junky stuff won't help you.

Removing stuff could help but then you have to recycle the "stuff" separately. Usually this is to your detriment but not always.

For instance:
Trimming gold fingers off RAM sounds like a good idea but the weight of the fingers times that nice looking $40/lb plus the weight of the trimmed RAM times $9.25/lb is not going to pay as well as leaving it alone for the total weight times $23/lb.

I buy some of my stuff from a guy who decided to do what I described above and it cost him. Don't recall how much but it did.

On the other hand removing the stuff that is recommended for removal keeps you from having a downgrade. Oversized heatsinks, fans, steel and batteries.

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Here's what the board would look like after (digitally) trimming the extra weight off.

If I were to remove anything it would only be aluminum capacitors and transformers. Other than batteries. I figure everything else would have gold connectors. But if it doesn’t upgrade then all I’m doing is losing weight so I won’t do that either. Thanks for all the help.