The "Table to excel" GP tool includes an optional checkbox to "Use domain and Subtype description" which properly translate the text description from subtype names and domains to the resulting table.
Such an option doesn't appear to exists for the "Feature class to Shapefile" GP tool.
I bleieve it would be very useful to add a function to export feature class to shapefile that will export with the use domain and subtype description (same as "table to excel").