>for getting the increased zoom you're getting 4x optical zoom (going down from 5x on 16 pro) and then 2x software zoom. Not bad, but not more optical zoom...

and that bump has again lens bumps, uneven, and the cases are really fugly and large

It's not software zoom -- it's them doing binned pixels at 4x and then unbinning them and cropping down at 8x. Same thing they were doing on previous models for the 2x zoom, and now unlocked on the telephoto lens because of the resolution increase this year.

It's a quality drop for sure, but it's never extrapolating pixels that weren't optically there as software zoom does.