You are quite correct; one of the problems being that we see far more absolute statements online than are warranted, and when somebody tries to not make an absolute statement and attempts to brings nuance, many try to read it as absolute. Which leads to a lot of incivility that would far less frequently happen if we were all sitting around a camp fire sipping beer, whiskey or wine. We‘d be actually commenting on each other’s pictures, not the cameras that took them.
But, be as it may, my experience with the z7ii placed it more on equal footing with my D750 for AF performance and keeper rate and far behind my D850 and D500. It did great on big slow BIF and fell apart as soon as I had small, fast birds and / or complex backgrounds. I am an omnivore when it comes to photography, so that wasn’t good enough for me.
When the rumors firmed up on the z9, I decided against it for the same reasons as you, size weight plus the fact that Nikon Is going deeper into the customizable function buttons on the front and I just don’t like that, it doesn’t work for me.
And here we go, switched to a Sony, against my better judgement and loving it. The A1 is not perfect, far from it, but it is incredibly better than the D500/850 or the Z7ii in about every way (I still think the sensor in the Z7ii has better image quality at lower isos). Most surprising to me is that despite its inherent complexity, it’s made concentrating on the image easier. When you know that the camera will not fail you 98% of the time, you just let it do it’s thing. People switching to the Z9 will experience the same or even better, and I sure hope a Z8 comes shortly as well.
my last comment is that unlike you, for me Nikon ergonomics is the one thing I had to “put up with” over the last 7 years I shot nikon. It was worth it because of all the other benefits (sensors and pf lenses) but I never liked it. Maybe because I shot canon for 25 years.., crazy as it sounds, the ergonomics of the new Sony bodies (A1, A7s3 and now A7iv) work for me. I just wish they had pf lenses too