If somebody were to have told me back in 2024 that Nintendo Switch 2 would be capable of running Yooka Replaylee at 60fps, I would've believed them... probably. IDK I don't know enough about all of this tech jargin. All I know is that Yooka Replaylee finally has a 60fps mode, and I'm ecstatic to finally play the game on the proper system.

Ray traced effects don't require dedicated RT cores to be rendered. Crysis Remastered demonstrated that. However, thanks to your post, I've checked performance of a PC with RX 570 and 16 GB of ram in SW:O and it's below 20 FPS sometimes with FSR quality and low settings. So a PS4 Pro would be probably below that, not worth putting resources for porting IMO.

Right now Nintendo might be selling Switch 2 at the loss, so they decision to stuck with the worse manufacturing process was a right one. They can always release a more powerful version if there's demand.

HoloDust addressed the other point. My example is relevant in that RTGI is becoming characteristic of 9th Generation games. SW2 is able to achieve what PS4 Pro couldn't for those titles. For older technologies, of course, the slight rasterization advantage PS4 Pro has makes it roughly match SW2 (by running games at much higher input resolutions), with SW2 making up for it with its better upscale method (DLSS vs. check-boarding.) 

Having played through the opening sections of Pragmata, I came away reasonably impressed.

Graphically it looks really good by Switch 2 standards, with a clean sci-fi look and nice lighting and effects work. Hugh's character model in particular is stellar. I'm not super sensitive to unlocked framerates so I found performance to be fine.

Along with Requeim, one of the better examples of a current gen port to Switch 2 to my eyes.

In theory true, no RT hardware is really required for any RT game. In practice, some solutions are built around RT hardware (and accompanying software) that it becomes mandatory to have RT hardware to run them.

SW:O is not that kind of game, that is why it runs on GCN4 (I haven't looked if it runs on anything prior to that). But as you noticed, it runs not so good, and making it run at 30fps on PS4Pro (even if it didn't need SSD, or they pulled some trick that makes it run off HDD) would be a tall order. Not impossible, IMO, just harder than on SW2, since fixed hardware does wonders for optimizations, which is why comparing PC version of that game using any setting on any hardware cannot be really compared to SW2 port. But in the end, it's all pretty much a moot point - it makes no business sense, and that's all that matters really in the end when it comes to ports.

As for Switch 2 hardware - I'm not even talking about smaller node (though that would be great) - better cooling solutions, both in console and dock would allow for higher CPU/GPU clocks. SW2's GPU is limited at 1007MHz when docked, while Ampere based GPUs, both desktop and mobile, go to 1800MHz and beyond. It would be silly to expect that from handheld, but SW2 with vapor chamber could easily hit 1.3GHz, for ~$10 in BOM, and that is so much performance left on the table. Now, I know it's not Nintendo way, it would cut into their profit somewhat, but let's not pretend there are not relatively cheap solutions to pull this off.

The CPU is slower docked than portable.  I still think Nintendo could easily do so much more with the dock and speeds for a larger boost.

They could've - they opted not to, since that would require some ~$10 more in BOM, which would cut into profit if they retained the same console price. At the scales they are selling, that is lot of profit lost over lifetime. That's why, from my POV as a consumer, SW2 is just 7/10, which is good, but not great.

I think both points are quite fair.  $10 seems like nothing, but times 100,000,000 units...  Nintendo was always going to sacrifice performance for pricing, so I am not surprised at all by the underclocking and leaving a lot on the table.  7/10 seems like a really fair score, I am probably around the same.  

Ok, I get your point now. Nintendo can be conservative with clock rates. They're downclocking the S2 due to battery's longevity as well. Higher temperatures could degrade battery faster. Still, I am pretty sure they could unlock 1 more CPU core and introduce the boost mode for a short amount of time. A smaller node is still better solution, but there will for sure a price increase for 5/4 nm SOC version that is probably coming next year.

Most of the SW2's performance issues are from its CPU bottleneck.

Nintendo really should free up the CPU allocations dedicated to Gamechat or at least give users the option while still requiring developers to target 30fps for when Gamechat is on.

Gamechat is a useless feature for many of us.

Edit: Pragmata and the Resident Evil games probably could get closer to their 60fps targets with an extra CPU core.