My condolences on the loss of your friend and industry peer.

Excellent. And I agree. Simplify.

The only thing that would make me consider upgrading is if they start introducing some of the wonderful technology that's in my smartphone into these professional level cameras. My Pixel phone spits out beautifully tone mapped and color balanced jpegs better than any mirrorless camera I've seen. I also want the ability to upload files wirelessly as I shoot, with location data built in all done effortlessly. Then I would have the best of both worlds!

i sold my sony a7riii becouse of hate to this piece of webcam and bought nikon d750. BSI, stabilization and iso not a problem if you know how to shoot^ but Nikon have better body and cheaper lenses. My soul is happy

I had the Sony A7RIVa and upgraded to the Sony A7RIV essentially for the new AI chip with its unbelievable focus tracking performance. By the way this camera has really good and very flexible focus stacking!

The camera manufacturers are going to hate you, but everything you said is true. My condolences for the loss of your friend.

I agree with you. I had the Sony A7RIII, then I got the Sony A7RIV and later the A7RIVA (sold the A7RIII), I think that the A7RIVA should have had the 9.5 mega dots EVF ! Now the A7RV have the 9.5 dot mega dots EVF and better IBIS, the only two things that I can use in the A7RV, I never use video and I do not like a fully articulating screen, I was very disappointed that the sensor was not he 93 megapixels sensor that Sony hides on the shelf ! I was also disappointed that the Sony A6700 did not have the 40 megapixels sensor that sits in two different Fuji Cameras ! Maybe we will see the 93 megapixels sensor next year !? Then Sony also maybe can think about that there are a lot more still photographers then videographers ! So Sony could make a still only Camera or at least make it easy to shut off all video functions and hide them in the menu. One thing more that is disappointing with the Sony A7RV is the battery life that is shorter than in the A7RIV. I will not upgrade to A7RV ! About Lenses, I miss more compact wide angle to short tele Sony Lenses that have at least the GM optical quality, just with a bit smaller apertures. I love the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar Lenses ! Sony have not made prime Lenses like 300mm 4.0, 400mm 4.5 and 500mm 5.6 (look at Nikons 400mm Z Lens !).

I am in the same dilemma, should I replace either my Sony A9 or Sony A7RIIIA with the new Sony A7CII, or should I just continue as before with my current old Sony cameras from 2017? It is mainly because of the new AI autofocus that I am considering a change, but I have shot a wedding again and the bride and groom were very satisfied with the images. However, I have slowly replaced my lens kit and have now made it smaller and lighter, so now I use for events the Sony 35mm.f.1.4 GM and the Sony 50mm.f.1.4 and the Sony 20-70mm.f.4 G (three winners for me) plus Sigma 28-70mm.f.2.8 if the lens with aperture 4 cannot be used in slightly darker surroundings. I also have the Sony 200-600mm.f.5.6-6.3, but don't use it very much, but it's always good to have for those rare occasions..... Many greetings from Denmark