is Opus that much better than Sonnet? My sub is $20 a month, so I guess I'd have to buy that I'm going to get a 10x boost, which seems dubious

With the $20 plan you get Opus on the web and in the native app. Just not in Claude Code.

IMO it's pretty good for design, but with code it gets in its head a bit too much and overthinks and overcomplicates solutions.

Yes, Opus is much better at complicated architecture

It does seem better in many regards, but the usage limits get hit quickly even with a paid account.

Value is irrelevant. What's the return on investment you get from spending $200?

Collecting value doesn't really get you anywhere if nobody is compensating you for it. Unless someone is going to either pay for it for you or give you $200/mo post-tax dollars, it's costing you money.

The return for me is faster output of features, fixes, and polish for my products which increases revenue above the cost of the tool. Did you need to ask this?

Yes, I did. Not everybody has their own product that might benefit from a $200 subscription. Most of us work for someone else and, unless that person is paying for the subscription, the _value_ it adds is irrelevant unless it results in better compensation.

Furthermore, the advice was given to upgrade to a $200 subscription from the $20 subscription. The difference in value that might translate into income between the $20 option and the $200 option is very unclear.

If you are employed you should petition your employer for tools you want. Maybe you can use it to take the day off earlier or spend more time socializing. Or to get a promotion or performance bonus. Hopefully not just to meet rising productivity expectations without being handed the tools needed to achieve that. Having full-time access to these tools can also improve your own skills in using them, to profit from in a later career move or from contributing toward your own ends.

I'm not disputing that. I'm just pushing back against the casual suggestion (not by you) to just go spend $200.

No doubt that you should ask you employer for the tools you want/need to do your job but plenty of us are using this kind of thing casually and the response to "Any way I can force it to use [Opus] exclusively?" is "Spend $200, it's worth it." isn't really helpful, especially in the context where the poster was clearly looking to try it out to see if it was worth it.

If you have the money, and like coding your own stuff, the $200 is worth it. If you just code for the enterprise? Not so much.