Qwen3.8: 27b vs flash next. We all know the benchmarks, but at least to me, the reality is a different story

By classic benchmark, the flash next is supposed to be slightly superior to its dense counterpart. But they are really incomparable. For my very simple workflows (spec -> implement -> review <-> rework), I feel that 27b is just better quality.

For context, and making things worse, I am comparing quantized 27b versus cloud flash next.

\- self hosted unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:Q4\_K\_XL (stock llamacpp with 130K context window)
\- alibaba cloud (qwen individual token plan), context capped at 256K in the harness

The metrics for my quality is actually very simple, I measure the number of review / rework needed before a PR is ready for me to read. The tasks are all very simple with a tight scope. Usually 27b do the work in \~2 iterations, flash next needs \~5. And it is not only about the number of iteration.
On the review flash next is overly verbose on half baked PR comment, where 27b is more straight to the point. In the end, the code produced is on par, to be frank. But if we look at token consumption...

Side notes, on pairing session, I got some deep hallucination using "/skills:diagnosing-bugs" + flash next. But since it is "bugs" and they not really comparable chunk of work, it is hard to say.

And I can't be the only one feeling that right ? Are you feeling the same ?

PS: of course I followed the hype and jumped on Strata. After the initial "oh my god it's so fast", I switched back to 27b. Tried all quant from "ISTA-DASLab" as well as experiemental from unsloth (Q4\_K\_L). With ISTA-DASLab, It actually is the first time I had "tool call error" in pi (which stop the agent), multiple times.