Yeah, this very much feels like "we have made a more efficient/scalable model and we're selling it as the new shiny but it's really just an internal optimization to reduce cost"

Significant cost reduction while providing the same performance seems pretty big to me?

Not sure why a more efficient/scalable model isn't exciting

Oh it's exciting, but not as exciting when sama pumps GPT-5 speculation and the market thinks we're a stones throw away from AGI, which it appears we're not.

Personally, I am more concerned about accuracy than speed.

Yeah, but OpenAI is concerned with getting on a path to making money, as their investors will eventually run out of money to light on fire, so...