Kevin, Thanks for the article. Very informative. The really big deal for me (as one who shot with the Canon 1Ds series for years) is the use of the older sensor technology, which you mentioned in your article. What are they thinking? The Sony sensor......or equivalent, runs circles around the Canon sensor. I think they will eventually get their feature set going in the right direction but the sensor must go through a revolutionary update for me to ever consider them again. I do use some Canon glass with my Sony A7r ll.
I think that the 5Dmk4 sensor is as big of a leap forward as Canon could have been expected to pull off, as one of their very first sensors with on-chip ADC, after the "dark ages" of literally a decade of base ISO dynamic range hitting a brick wall at around the ~12 EV mark.
It closed the gap enough that I can go back to recommending that people consider other merits of a system as a whole, when deciding on a camera, instead of strictly admonishing everyone to just pick between Nikon or Sony if they're a landscape photographer.
It's a shame that Canon didn't take the next step, and make a whole new, same-resolution ~30 MP sensor that had another EV of base ISO DR, and slightly more competitive high ISO image quality, but honestly, I think Canon is likely saying, "at least we didn't put the 6Dmk2 sensor in it!"
It has been their tactic for many generations now, (indeed, since the days of the 1Ds's) to reserve the best technology for their most flagship offerings. In other words, the camera that will truly compete with the Sony A7R3, and the Nikon D850/Z7, will likely cost $3500+...
To stick with Canon now is to accept this one down-side of being the #1 market share brand.
That's not to say folks shouldn't loudly proclaim the urgent need for Canon to do better at this ~$2300 price point, and do it soon. They needed an absolute show-stopper as their first FF MILC, and to "kill" the A7iii (and hopefully stop ship-jumping dead in its tracks, at this price range) ...would have required dual SD card slots, IBIS, and un-cropped 4K video. Had they done those three things, I think this 5D4 sensor plus the noticeably improved DPAF (though not in Servo mode, I suppose) would have been more than enough to do the trick.