[karmasimida]

They do have value, because they are much much cheaper.

But no, 3.0 flash is not as good as 2.5 pro, I use both of them extensively, especially in translation. 3.0 flash will confidently mistranslate some certain things, while 2.5 pro will not.

[justinhj]

Totally fair. Translation is one of those specific domains where model size correlates directly with quality, and no amount of architectural efficiency can fully replace parameter count.