In my experience, all of the leading edge models fall over in the same ways that people are mentioning here as particularly frustrating with Gemini(s), it is just a matter of probability, I tend to sample multiple models and multiple formulations when I have a question, and sometimes you hit the "jackpot" where the particular sequence of input tokens have pushed one model to exactly the right zone to start printing the tokens I want.

I agree. This is one reason I like the "blind taste test" approach of LM Arena.