- In short
- An undeclared model-tier default is the silent choice a system makes when no deliberate tiering decision is taken at design time: it defaults to the most expensive available model. Its symptoms are cost far above projection, latency above the agreed target, and satisfaction scores that never moved despite the added spend. Extended reasoning features left enabled on simple steps compound the cost and latency. Diagnosing it means tracing those symptoms back to the missing decision rather than to the model getting more expensive.
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