Typically I would agree, but from what we've been hearing, most third parties only had access to the Switch 2 since February. That's certainly not enough time to have a Switch 2 version that "is probably better optimized." The fact that the Switch 2 version is competitive with (and actually has some advantages compared to the other versions in terms of image quality) is impressive. 

Against PS4? Of course, as it should. Against Series S? Maybe in some aspects, let's wait for launch and DF analyses. Against PS5? Let's not get silly here - Switch 2 has very, very good hardware, but it's not anywhere near PS5 in any metric, except for superior upscaling via DLSS.

Civ VII developers praise the Switch 2, say it has power to run the game similar to a mid-tier PC.

https://gonintendo.com/contents/47146-civ-vii-team-extremely-happy-with-switch-2-compare-power-to-mid-tier-pc

In a chat with Game File, Civ executive producer Dennis Shirk said that the graphics team is “extremely happy” about what they can pull off, because they, “were able to make (the game) look like a mid-tier PC, because (Switch 2 has) enough power.”

Shirk went on to say that the team found Switch 2 easy to develop for, and they’re also excited about being able to implement mouse controls thanks to the Joy-Con’s mouse-like features.

If only we had any idea what Dennis Shirk classified as a "mid-tier pc" lol. A lot of people on gaming forums might say an RTX 4060 and obviously the Switch 2 isn't remotely close to that.

Regardless Civ 7 is going to run a lot better on Switch 2, though I only played 6 on Switch, idk how 7 runs on it currently.

The mouse control for civ 7 isnt really of value to me. I couldn't imagine wanting to play it on a TV over handheld with both gamepad and touchscreen support but that's just me lol.

You can obviously see the texture detail on the Switch 2 version is better than the Series S version. It is obvious. Look at the veins in the arm on the Switch 2 version that are absent on the Series S, for example. We don't need Digital Foundry to see this. It is right there. This isn't pixel counting.

As for Switch 2 vs. PS5, the hair and face features on some of the characters is sharper, likely due to DLSS vs. FSR. The PS5 version obviously is more demanding overall (Depth of Field, better clothing textures, subsurface scattering, etc), but in that one aspect the Switch 2 version is crisper, which is why I mentioned image quality specifically.

By the way, this was not a general statement of the platform capabilities. This discussion you quoted was specifically about SF6.

I think there will be many games like this one that are ported to Switch 2 and have some things improved, for being much later ports, and having nothing to do with actual console capabilities. I think that was Zippy's initial observations boils down to.

Cause even though Series S has much better texturing capabilities, and fairly better shading performance, Switch 2 version from that shots looks better. And that is not due to hardware. Not to mention PS5. Hence why I said, let's not get carried away too easily.

Well the other consoles also continued to receive updates and patches so it's not like Switch 2 isn't the only beneficiary of improvements over time. A few devs have also reported pulling these results off in a short time such as Cyberpunk 2077 with a 7 weeks build. So there are several factors at play.

I don't think it is totally due to hardware, but it could be as simple as the extra memory capacity that the Switch 2 has allowed them to easily get the textures at that state with equivalent or less effort. Digital Foundry (amongst other groups) already speculated that Switch 2 could alleviate some of the ram bottlenecks that the Series S experiences and therefore have better quality textures. This might be a common occurrence, depending on how much ram the OS uses.

This isn't to say they couldn't have gotten the high quality textures on Series S with a clever optimization, but it would just be more work that you don't need to do on the Switch 2.

On a side note, I am interested in whether the final version for the Switch 2 will have DoF. I am hoping they don't since I prefer it off, but that is one area that all of the other 9th gen versions have in common that the current version on the Switch 2  doesn't. 

I'm just hoping that some of the folks are not standing beside that old rabbit hole known as "secret sauce/punching above its weight", getting ready to jump into it.

Series S has way better texture fillrate and memory bandwidth than Switch 2...so...

Maybe it's indeed that Switch renders at lower res and than uses DLSS.  Cause DLSS is really only things that really, really stands out compared to XBX/XBS/PS5.