Can it finally do pixel art?

If you define pixel art as just a vague overall look, then yes, it can do pixel art. If you define pixel art as being limited to a fixed color palette, like 16 or 256 colors and aligned to a square grid, then no, not without some manual post-processing.

It's not helped by the fact that a lot of people who are not artistically inclined will generate pixel art on these image generators at 1MP resolutions (far higher than traditional pixel art), such that even the casual observer can typically see the bad smearing and fringing in the final result.

That depends on your definition of pixel art. (people are exceptionally pedantic about this)

With the right prompt engineering, it (and similar quality models) can indeed do relevant pixel art, but due to the existence of blotchiness/SynthID watermarks you'll need to do some sort of postprocessing regardless.

There are SDXL pixel art models out there that do actual pixel art. They generate images that are 8x too large, you need to downscale them and reduce colors externally.