I even find that for what amounts to a web search Gemini 3.8 flash is better than the big models, stuff like the links to updated tax codes in different countries, or whatever MS is doing with Azure/o365 or AWS with their plethora of products.

I think use cases are the real reason why people have such different experiences, I too find that Opus5.5/Astra/6 are better for UI/UX now, it wasn't the case a year ago, at some point Gemini pro 3.5 was the best one at that.

That's also why I use all of them and try to not be locked to a single harness as well.