I find 35B A3B viable as well, but your harness and runtime really matters to get tool calling and such dialed in. In fact, I would encourage you to experiment with it some as I find I get more reliable output from 35B A3B, though 27B is still generally smarter. A3B with a review cycle or two from 27B is great for me.

One of the reasons is, with good specs and design, A3B is just so fast. It isn't as smart as the 27B model, but it is close enough it can usually figure it out with the right tools.