The year of the 11 lineup was the one year where the standard iPhone <LATEST_NUMBER> was a clear downgrade from last year's. It was a refresh of the iPhone XR from the previous year, which was the budget option compared to the flagship XS.
I'm certainly not a photographer but I got the 16 Pro because of ProMotion. If I were upgrading this year, I'd probably go for the standard 17 because it finally has practically everything a standard user could expect.