> I won't speak for anyone else, but in my experience: if you hang out with
> truly world-class climbers, occasionally getting through a 5.12 doesn't feel
> impressive at all
Yes, it's true that if you hang out with world-class climbers, 5.12 looks like a warm-up.
But it's also true that if you poll amateur climbers, being able to consistently red-point 5.12 is rare. being able to consistently on-sight 5.12 is rarer still. I think we can say that consistently climbing 5.12 is not world-class, but it is statistically rare amongst amateurs.
Both statements are compatible. We can quibble about whether "elite" means top 1%, top .1%, top .01%, &c. But in general, 5.12 is above the gym or crag duffer level, even regular gym or crag duffers.
Occasionally getting through a 5.12 isn't consistently climbing 5.12, mind you. IMO, the only ratings that count are the grades we can consistently red-point, flash, or on-sight. I can say whatever I like about this one Red Gorge 5.12c that had a couple of dynos, but I'm tall and I used to like to dyno. The truth is that the best I ever climbed was to consistently red-point 5.11 outside, with a few flashes and on-sights along the way.
Likewise, I think I have two V5s under my belt, but I absolutely never could count on sending even a V3 in one or two tries, so I really think that I climbed about V2 consistently outside, with bunches of V3s that I projected, with the memories of a few V4s and those two V5s to sustain me though my twilight years.
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All that being said, advances in training methods and the increasing popularity of difficulty climbing and bouldering as children's sports is rapidly raising the standard of excellence.
Starting young makes as much of a difference in climbing as it does in every other sport. There's nothing quite like hitting your peak physical prowess years with a half-decade or even decade of training under your belt, and your body hasn't put on its adult weight yet.
I'd say that 5.12 is rare amongst a certain generation of climbers, but this is not for long. It will soon be common for fifteen year-olds to swarm up 5.12s in gyms, and not long after that 5.10s will be known as "That thing your parents can play with while waiting to drive you home."