[remich]

But, isn't improving tools and the LLM's integration with them improving the model?

Caveat that we don't fully understand how human intelligence works, but with humans it's generally true that skills are not static or siloed. Improving in one area can generate dividends in others. It's like how some professional football players improve their games by taking ballet lessons. Two very different skills, but the incorporation of one improves the other as well as the whole.

I would argue that narrowly focusing on LLM performance via benchmarks before tool use is incorporated is interesting, but not particularly relevant to whether they are transformative, or even useful, as products.