This is so true, I use frontier models at work and the variance in the day to day experience can be dramatic.

I use Deepseek for some home stuff, and it's as you describe - fast, consistent. Not brainiac level, but when you drive it well it just tends to execute reliably. I have seen it fail consistently on very hard stuff, but I'm certainly ok with having to special case occasionally. Especially if those occasions keep getting less and less numerous as the models improve.

Now I need to convince my company to allow us to use a Chinese model ... I don't think I'll have much luck.