"Nerf tracking" is adversarial and exploratory. It's not something Anthropic wants anyone to do, and it's not something that the "nerf tracking" designers are necessarily doing in a foolproof way. Don't assume too much from them either way.
Sometimes you just have insufficient evidence to be sure of something either way, and nobody gets to win the argument or shut somebody else down.
In this case, some have reported analytical work[0] that goes beyond "gut feel" anecodotal evidence, but even that's not going to conclusive and may not be trustworthy at all.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1xr9x5y/the_ner...
Ok, it probably burns tokens faster, but is it really a nerf?