I don't really understand why they would release something "worse" than Opus 4.6. If it's comparable, then what is the reason to even use Opus 4.6? Sure, it's cheaper, but if so, then just make Opus 4.6 cheaper?
(Sonnet is far, far better at this kind of task than Opus is, in my experience.)
That makes no sense. People are willing to pay for Opus 4.6 so why would Anthropic make it cheaper exactly?