Yet an even better shot with better gear.
"A bad photographer with good gear doesn't produce good photos"
Yet still a better photo compared to low-end gear.
My point is that better gear tends to produce better photos at a technical level, regardless of skill. Skill and gear are parallel tracks, not things at odds with each other.
The categories of photography where gear is less important, are fairly limited. Using a mobile phone and some artistic skill you can make quite decent photos of people, large animals that are close, a building here and there, and some landscapes.
Yet if you look at the types of photography where you find the gear-heads, you'll find that most often high-end gear is required, and just skill doesn't cut it.
In wildlife and sports photography, you need big glass. Even if you have it, you may notice your neighbor has AI focus detection and 40fps capturing. He has keepers, you miss the shot or have out of focus ones. Skill cannot compensate for these massive differences in capability.
In macro photography, you need highly specialized gear and lighting equipment. It's a gear-heavy discipline.
In higher-end portrait photography, you need large aperture lenses and lighting systems that do not overheat.
In landscape photography where you want maximum detail, you require high MP cameras, specific lenses and decent tripods.
In none of these cases can you compensate the need for gear with skill.