I think you're being overly cynical here. First, I don't see any claim that is the world's best model for agentic coding. Second, it is absolutely the best model in terms of coding performance vs. dollar, and it's raw performance seems very close to the frontier.
GPT 5.6 is far more token efficient at most tasks with similar performance. Especially so for Opus 4.8, still to be seen with Opus 5.
Where are you getting cheaper per dollar?
How are you supporting the claim that GPT 5.6 is "far more token efficient" than Opus 5? Tokens equal, output is cheaper for Opus 5 ($25/1M) than GPT-5.6-Sol ($30/1M), and it seems to outperform slightly on agentic coding benchmarks.
The first chart in the blog post shows a similar $/performance curve to GPT 5.6.
Where 5.6 has optionality to run much cheaper along the same performance curve at lower thinking levels.
There's a later chart that shows Opus 5 ahead, but seems like an esoteric benchmark rather than for common use. (Novel problem solving)
If they had a more efficient model at coding they would lead with that chart.
Here is one data point for cost:
https://artificialanalysis.ai/models?cost=intelligence-vs-co...
Here is another data point for output token efficiency:
https://artificialanalysis.ai/models?cost=intelligence-vs-co...
Token cost and token efficiency are two unrelated metrics, and anyways what really matters is neither in isolation - it's cost to complete a task.
https://www.anthropic.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww-...
It seems roughly equal according to Anthropic's benchmarks
It would still be the best model per dollar if the score was 2% lower instead of 0.1% lower. Would it be ok to still give it the highlight color then?
How big of a lie is too big? Especially when no lie needed to be told at all: many including myself would have noticed the tiny 0.1% deficit and been suitably impressed by the Opus 5 result.
I’ll admit this is a small deception by today’s standards. I’m one of those who believes in truth for truth’s sake.
Edit: typo
we don't know if it is 0.1% deficit, could be 0.05%
So highlight both then.