> The reason thinking seems to work is that it's just trying to find an optimum outside the local optimum, and the thinking trace helps find it.

Yes, I think I finally have an intuitive sense for that. But surely on a longer prompt it is still better for the final response if the thinking has at least brushed past all of the prompt?

One of the things I witnessed with xhigh is that while the thinking trace starts out intending an overview of the prompt, it actually can go fully down a rabbit hole off one of the first two or three bullet points even when it was seemingly intending not to.

It’s basically a lot like me. Gets sidetracked by the interesting bits.