Okay, so the general vibe here is less 'Hooray, new model!' and more 'Please, for the love of all that is holy, don't take away Opus 4.6'.

the consensus is overwhelmingly skeptical, bordering on hostile. The community is clearly still traumatized by the Opus 4.7 update, which most users consider a massive downgrade. The news that 4.8 "builds on 4.7" has gone down like a lead balloon.

The Cult of 4.6: Everyone is terrified of losing access to Opus 4.6, the subreddit's beloved gold standard. Many are reporting it's already gone from their model list, while others can still access it, causing widespread panic and threats to switch to competitors.

Token Terror: The number one concern after losing 4.6 is how fast 4.8 will incinerate usage limits. Early reports are not comforting, with users claiming it's even more token-hungry than 4.7, rendering the Pro plan a "sampler" at best.

Benchmark Blues: Nobody trusts the benchmark charts. The phrase "trust me bro" has been thrown around a lot, with users pointing out that 4.7 also had a pretty graph before it disappointed everyone.

Sonnet & Haiku Neglect: A significant number of users wish Anthropic would focus on improving the cheaper models instead of another incremental Opus release, especially given the cost concerns.

>A few brave souls are reporting positive initial results, saying it feels like a fixed 4.7, but they are a tiny island in a vast ocean of doubt. The rest of the thread is basically a support group for people who miss the good old days of Opus 4.6.

This is in line with my understand: models are stagnated, and most improvement is from work on harnesses. And they can't do it without burning even more tokens.