It seems that way to you because you haven't used the system. It is not operating with "tolerances lowered a whole lot" or really, at all.
> You can readily buy other cars with the same EyeQ3 board that powered AutoPilot until Tesla's breakup with Mobileye, and their new Nvidia-based clone of it does little more than the original.
It's quite silly to talk about the hardware when it's obvious that it's the software that will truly differentiate the systems.
Tesla's system is much more impressive than anything else on the market because of the software involved for both hardware revisions. It is able to operate in environments where other systems fail and is able to do so reliably on more roads than their competition.
> You're taking their marketing at face value while their EAP/FSD packages have largely been vaporware for 2.5 years now.
You're correct here, but then again, the same can be said of their competitors.