It’s not like stock photos of infeasibly attractive people eating ludicrously overstuffed burgers were ever interesting or believable.

Of course not. Bad marketing is bad marketing.

either way, looks like we're staring down the barrel of mediocrity - the AI isn't a fix. You can't really AI yourself outside of 'the average x/y/z' that these models generate. being specific with your prompting still leads to the most average version of said prompt...rinse repeat.

At least stock photos don't have the documented side effect of inducing nausea.