See that's the thing, they can't. Every model needs hand holding and guidance.

some require less hand-holding than others though

No one is trying to argue that OS models are better than Opus 4.7. It's simply that they're good enough and cheaper.

The point is that the price gap is so much larger than the capability gap, that even with the extra compute needed to make up for the lack of capability, you can still come out ahead in terms of amortized $/work done.

Is it really when they are hundreds of times more expensive?

That is the 3-6 month sota-open gap people talk about, a time-window that continues to move as new models are released on both sides.

Do you know what economic trade offs are?

Both implicit and explicit..?