What stood out to me isn't that Fable scored highest it's that the benchmark reinforces a pattern many teams are already seeing in production: the most expensive model often creates the most value during architecture, planning, and review, not necessarily during implementation. Once the work is well-specified, the gap between flagship and mid-tier models narrows surprisingly fast. The real optimization may not be picking a single "best" model, but using the right model for each stage of the SDLC. That's a much more interesting takeaway than leader board rankings alone.