Fable is on a class of its own when it comes to coding and orchestration, but it runs out pretty quick and is prohibitively expensive and slow. For me, Astra wasn't as good of an upgrade from Sol when it comes to coding and orchestration, and it runs out pretty quick too. Opus 5 had so much potential but was such a pain to talk to, so I only had other agents delegate to it.
Given this, I kept coming back to Sol 5.6 as my daily driver (with consultations from Fable and Astra when available). Sol has an autistic character that smells like RL deepfry, which can be annoying, but it is nonetheless predictable, communicates more plainly than Claude, and is good at code and orchestration.
But this Opus 5.5 might just be it. Fable-level performance that's cheaper and faster, and communicates plainly and briefly. If it pans out in practice, I might just have a new daily driver and it might be time to raise the bar for what can be achieved.
I'll try out the new Sol 6, though Opus 5.5 seems to beat that release fair and square (at least on paper)
I'm also glad we are paying attention now to the experience of using a model, not just how good it is at 'x' class of tasks.