Help me decide whether I can live with the G7/G85 noise reduction

I have previously owned a series of Canon's (T1i, T3i, Sl1, and a higher end camcorder) for comparison of where I'm coming from. This is my first move into a mirrorless and a smaller sensor. I was very concerned that I would miss the tactility and directness of a DSLR (especially since the Sony's with EVFs I had tried in person before purchasing the G7 were awful for someone who likes shooting through a viewfinder and shoots mostly manual), but the G7/G85 form factor has won me over. I don't feel the camera in use is "fake" at all (my simplest word to describe the experience on the Sony), and it almost feels like shooting through a real viewfinder, plus tons of great wheels to adjust settings quickly.

My usage is partly as a hobbyist, where I'm very very fond of video but shoot probably more photos than video. My secondary usage is more professional, but not in a direct way: I am a figure sculptor, in a rather traditional naturalistic sense. To support this I shoot video (and sometimes photos) to directly or indirectly refer to when working. I went for the G7 initially for its 4k features (I am working off a 4k tv mounted vertically mostly, it's nice to be able to get up close or far back as needed to understand some detail better). Only to find out a week later that the G85 had everything the G7 had plus IBIS. I can barely afford the G85, not so much because of up front cost but because of a hesitation to own a $1k camera body and the liability that entails. That said, IBIS would seem to be the single most valuable feature for someone shooting lots of handheld vertical-oriented video that they watch in slow-mo, so I took the leap and got the G85 and requested a return on the G7. Now they are both sitting here and I'm in a position to have to finally seal the deal in some way.

On every one of my so called requirements the G7 and especially the G85 seems to have a tic mark:

• Ability to shoot FHD 60p (for later slow-mo) or 4k 30p (for ability to look closely at details). 4k 60p would be nice, but I know it's a fringe high-end feature at this point still.
• Likeliness of results to be consistently sharp enough to read the topography of fine features like eyelids and in slow-mo or freeze-frames (YES: Autofocus in video on these things is fantastic and manual focus is great too with focus peaking, plus IBIS on G85 makes slow-mo experience way less bumpy)
• All features fully usable with EVF (These camers both are amazing in this respect, I can even use touch autofocus on the articulating screen while still viewing through EVF), since I am far more able to follow the way my eye moves around a form for three dimensional information with an VF than with a screen.

BUT, there is one thing that keeps holding me back from EITHER of these cameras. There is a strange "fakeness" to the images, which, after days of working on adjusting settings I feel seems to be wholly from the over-zealous in camera noise reduction which persists in doing what I feel to be far too much noise-reduction EVEN when turned down to -5. This noise reduction seems to lower the resolution and wash out details, but worse, it sort of deadens the image for me -- not an issue maybe for my studio reference material but an issue for personal work. (I never minded noise/grain to begin with in an aesthetic sense).

Having shot a lot of test shots with every possible combination of sharpening and noise reduction it appears that what makes it particularly strange looking, by default, is that the camera wants to first over reduce noise, thus blurring detail and sharpness, then to sharpen the blurred out noise, creating a totally artificial, blocky sharpness that I really don't expect from a camera of this apparent quality. My Canons I would describe as consistently giving me a "film like" look, whether sharp or soft. These cameras both look like "digitizations" at 100% with anything other than ISO 200.

Some people might say I can just shoot RAW. I have shot some RAW on these cameras and indeed I could live with the RAW results fine. I did shoot RAW for for four or five years with my Canon's, but it was just a time sync for a person who already is not good at making decisions and is a bit of a purist/perfectionist. Switching to jpeg was a great thing for me, and it worked just fine with no regrets on my most recent Canon once I got my settings right and saved me gobs of time (and even allowed me to reduce my computing needs heavily). Also, RAW is a solution for stills, but wont fix the issue on video. I can't tell if the "Cinelike D" photo style might do less noise reduction but it wont help me because it requires some post-processing to bring back the contrast, another time sync that I didn't have with my Canon.

I have now spent enough hours zoomed in up close struggling with this issue that it's hard to take it with a big enough grain of salt. I love these cameras in a practical sense; I find they get overall good images most the time, but I find this one issue really keeping me from committing (which would mean spending another $600 on prime lenses and expecting to stick with the body for at least 4 years and the M4/3rds format hopefully for much longer). I could really use the IBIS, ability to use VF for video, good video AF, etc of these two options and I can't seem to find a Canon equivalent on any of those features. It seems like either I stay with the G7/85 for a camera that feels like it was built for the exact type of work I want to do with it, or trade that in for something clumsier and less workable that has an image quality/look that I feel completely unhesitant about.