The camera is definitely not the least important part. Try taking a picture with an iPhone 4 vs an iPhone 14. No matter how well you compose a picture, poor image quality automatically makes it look bad.
A few years later with a Nikon D90 it was possible to get amazing, print-worthy shots by accident… through the window of a moving car!
I had an olympus C-2 Zoom which was dramatically worse than the Sony and it captured many great photos. I can see some good sample photos here ofthe F717 https://onfotolife.com/camera_sample_photos?camera_id=4527&p...
I had the same experience. At gorgeous locations in good light I could get okay photos — but only with a lot of editing.
I had a similar issue with a Panasonic micro four-thirds camera where I was just never happy with the photos I got out of it. I much prefered the results I got with my prior inexpensive Canon APS-C DSLR, and the Sony Full Frame mirrorless camera I upraded to afterwards. No doubt a better photographer than myself could have gotten some great photos out of the Panasonic - but yeah for me just upgrading the camera made a big difference in both my own satisfaction and also the feedback I was getting from others.