How do people keep track of all these versions and releases of all these models and their pros/cons? Seems like a fulltime hobby to me. I'd rather just improve my own skills with all that time and energy
Only time it matters if you're using some type of agnostic "router" service.
That's what I would recommend, it's time better spent. I use AI occasionally to bounce some questions around or have some math jargon explained in simpler terms (all of which I can verify with external sources) using the free version of chatgpt or gemini or whatever I'm feeling that day, without caring about whatever version the model is. I don't need an AI to write code for me because writing the code is not really the hard part of solving a problem, in my opinion.