Congrats to OP on surviving getting thrown off a cliff.
Tarcion
I've found the overall performance to be more consistent/better. The "better" part is a bit moot as every time I buy a new phone, the performance should be better than the last one just because it's newer technology.
And while there are a lot of things I don't like, core performance kind of overshadows any other issues I have or features I'm missing out on. Perhaps I should have said "better for my needs" instead of "better product."
Some people would have laughed you out of the room. A lot of people, myself included, warned that this was the kind of shit we'd spiral into with these microtransactions. It was basically confirmed within a year or two with the absolutely insane amount of money mobile gaming was seeing where the base product was just addictive crap with as many microtransactions shoveled in as possible. These games just completely blew the revenue of actual AAA titles would out of the water. It was basically inevitable and we're now in a situation where we've got a generation of consumers raised on this trash.
To be fair, these were good predictions. All of this is actually possible. It's just capitalism being the problem it usually is..