Wow, rough day today? Your last paragraph is quite ironic considering you accuse others of childish behavior, not to mention irrelevant to my point, so there’s no need to address it any further.

Getting to the part of your post germane to the issue, if developers start making games run stable based on Pro specs, the base consoles may take performance hits that otherwise could have been avoided. For example if I remember correctly, Resident Evil 2 ran solid at 60fps on PS4 Pro, but struggled on the base model. I don’t remember if the frame rate was unlocked or what (someone will know) but I do remember Digital Foundry or someone showing that the game’s performance on base PS4 was not good as far as 60fps gameplay and that does matter to me.

On the other hand, Resident Evil 7 before that had no problem running well on base PS4 at 60fps; PS4 pro had just released a couple of months earlier at that point. It makes you wonder if Capcom could have optimized RE2 better or changed it up a bit to run flawlessly on the base PS4 if a higher spec model didn’t exist. Meanwhile, Resident Evil 8 on PS5 gives us the option for a glorious experience at 60fps from the start. It’s like having the Pro model right away, which is why I don’t personally think Pro models are really necessary this time.

If it was strictly just higher pixel counts or fancier ray tracing with a Pro model, then I don’t want to take away people’s choices if that’s what the market wants, and like someone else mentioned, Sony could opt to treat it strictly like an enthusiast model. But companies won’t always stick to that; I do seem to recall several games DF showed where the PS4 Pro and XOX versions appeared to be the targets for stability itself and not just higher resolution.  That is where it could affect me and the games I want.

So I stand by my original post: While I’m all for people having choices, I do still prefer the more traditional method of a universal system that ages gracefully.

Impossible in a 8 year generational cycle. Eventually the biggest AAA games will target large and bigger specs, whether it's a PC or a Pro version because that's a selling point. They will not hold off to make fancier graphics, as the players are pretty much expecting all installments to be graphically superior to the older ones. The framerate issue will happen regardless of the existence of the pro model, The Last of Us 2 runs only 30 FPS even on Pro model meaning eventually every big PS5 release will be 30 FPS. What the Pro Model will offer is a chance to upgrade it to a version with better resolution for people who are start to get annoyed of seeing their console to show its age (and mind you, that WILL happen)

Besides, what happens if the console maker do not release a Pro model is that you're giving Microsoft and Sony bigger margins when selling Playstation and Xbox, as manufacturing costs go down and their prices keep the same the whole generation. If a Pro Model they can at least price cut the base models in a few years. More accessibility, more people buying consoles, more options, more games running better. Not a single bad thing about Pro releases. 

I know there are real-world technical issues that prevent the old five-year-cycle way of doing things, but I really miss it. It was so exciting to get brand new hardware and games every five years. Especially considering how much more advanced those consoles and games were from the last console. It seemed the industry was always on the forefront of some new, formerly-unthinkable evolution. Now, I don't get that feeling at all anymore. It's all pretty much gone.

It is more that when we were younger 5 years seemed to take a lot longer than it does when we are older.

That ship has already sailed with VRR :( There are very few games already that have locked 30 or 60 fps modes. I rather spend another $500 on a pro console than replace my TV again. I'll keep my quality tv, not gonna replace it with a budget hdmi 2.1 monitor or tv, while a pro will also improve visuals on PSVR2.

About RE7 and RE8, there were made to run at locked frame rates, 60fps, so they can work in VR. You can thank VR for stable performance :)

What system before pro models aged gracefully? Maybe you have rose tinted glasses, yet ps3 and 360 generation ended in sub 720p resolutions with frequent frame drops down to the low twenties. SotC on PS2 ran terribly (didn't take away the fun though), Skyrim on PS3 was practically unplayable and had to be restarted every 20 minutes.

Game development moves on, pro model or not. People want more from games all the time, developers keep competing on graphical fidelity. A pro model is actually a nice alternative to early adopting. Go from pro model to pro model and you already have a whole library of games to play for a lot less, and are guaranteed good performance during the next cross-gen period.

@JackHandy I would agree with you had I not just played RE8 on PSVR2 and still playing it. All the innovation, big leaps, excitement (and experimentation mishaps) are in VR nowadays. PSVR1 to PSVR2 feels like going from PS1 to PS3, VHS to DVD. Still so much room for improvement, already knocking my socks off in nearly every new game I try.

It's not just diminishing returns that dampen the 'excitement' in flat screen gaming. It's more playing it safe with 100 million dollar budgets. Repeat what worked with minor iterations. A flop in VR with its small user base is far easier to get over than a 100 million dollar AAA game flopping. Indies are the place to find new game ideas, AAA games are for pretty graphics :/

I don't disagree with you here as that illustrates the problem. If the biggest AAA games target large and bigger specs, it's just PC they're targeting, that's why a Pro model would be created, and PCs evolve much faster.  So a Pro model is made and it's fine at first, but what happens when they start targeting higher than the Pro model's specs?  Do you make a "Pro" Pro Model?  That's a big part of where PC's and consoles differ and I guess I prefer the ~7 year life cycle method for consoles more.

Perhaps gracefully wasn't the best terminology, haha.  But the PS3 is actually a good example for what I meant:  Compare games from the first couple of years to Uncharted 2 & 3 or The Last of Us.  Granted they were 720p/30fps but that's what we were used to with AAA games at the time and they ran fine.  But most importantly, they show an almost generational leap over the early stuff.  Heck even Streets of Rage 1 to 2 on Sega Genesis back in the day - almost looked like it was on a different console.  And of course we all went nuts when DKC came out on the SNES.  These are the kinds of leaps I could appreciate on my same, aging console without the need of a Pro variant.

Regarding your second paragraph... that's actually not a bad idea.  Going from Pro model to Pro model does have its advantages if you're not an early adopter and don't mind being behind on new releases.

First party exclusives are the exception though. And even so, a ps3 pro would have saved me the money on the TloU remaster for ps4 where the game ran much better. PS3 went from 1080p60 launch games to struggling to maintain 720p30 at the end. So for PS5 1440p30 at the end of the gen would be the same with pro model delivering the 4K and 60fps modes. That's how games look so much better at the end of the gen, getting to know the hardware inside out, and using it for more than just rendering more pixels. 1080p60 is 4.5x more pixels per second than 720p30. Same difference between 4K60 and 1440p30. That's how you get games to look a generational leap over release games.

On a base model you can still enjoy the advances in game development, albeit at lower resolution and frame rate compared to early games.
With a pro model, you can have both.

Personally I can't see the difference between 1440p and 4K on my tv anyway, and 30 fps is perfectly fine to me as well on tv. (Although not if it regularly misses the target with bad judder as a result, yet same goes for 60 fps) However in VR I wouldn't mind some extra grunt for super sampling or native 90fps in more games without sacrificing detail.

When the target gets to high that a Pro console wouldn't be enough the baseline would be even worse and yes you would get a new gen.

But when you look for real world, even with PS5 released Sony still made some great exclusives launching on base PS4 and run acceptably.

Best target, imho, is 1440p, 60 fps and 120 hz. Native 4k is overrated.