I would appreciate if articles reviewing cameras did a better job of explaining why the pixel count is just a single (and highly manipulable) measure of imaging merit.

For all the pixel count, no company ever talks about pixel size (physical) and the noise characteristic as a result or the effective resolution. The imaging chip has not gotten physically larger between iPhones, I assume, so the pixels are just dividing the same light into more sites. Is this better?

People who don't know will just assume that 48 MP, well that's better than a Sony A7RIII now, right? Of course not.