i burn through a $200 claude and $200 codex plan every week. opus 5.5 is not "step change" it's just a bit better, and the benchmarks show this. Honestly with my workflow I cannot really tell the difference between the top models, they're all pretty much the same in capability, just a bit different. You can build software with all of them, and with all of them you have to validate the change thoroughly to not ship stupid bugs

I do not see the current training regime of "relentlessly try anything to get the task done" as a true step change in intelligence. This is one of the reasons I suspect capability acquisition is slowing.

A more intelligent model would not default to spaghetti throwing, it would pause to consider the problem fundamentals, the accuracy of assumptions, and ask questions that remove ambiguity. This however does not lend itself to increasing token sales while prices remain inflated from market and brand dominance.