Saxophone player of adequate standard here ... yeah the gear shouldn't matter and you can get good stuff out of garbage with the right pre-existing skills and attitude. But on the other hand I've upgraded my two main instruments recently-ish from low/mid range instruments to high end, and in both cases my playing improved a lot instantly, as suddenly I didn't have to work so hard to get the instruments to cooperate[1]. However having to work around the limitations of my old instruments also improved my skills too.

[1] having a good soprano sax that basically plays itself feels like cheating, but one of the reasons for that is having developed the skills to keep crappy sopranos cooperating reasonably well for so long too.