Canon EOS R3 Baked in Raw Noise Reduction Revisited

I very much appreciate Bill's amazing work in analyzing sensor performance. And, it is sometimes fascinating to see the results. Thank you so much for your heroically unpaid dedication to giving us photo droids all that great information.

In this case, and some others as well, sometimes the results, while interesting in themselves, become practically irrelevant. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, similarly, if a sensor in a camera system is manipulated by firmware, in order that it's results appear to have less noise than it would without the manipulation, do the results that the photographer/observer is presented with have more noise or the same amount as those results from some other sensor that is not manipulated but otherwise looks identical? In other words, except perhaps for tiny and humanly imperceptible measurements of the apex of scientifically scrutinized results in acuity and color, it doesn't matter at all, except perhaps for those doing some rare scientific research where such things just may matter.

The files from equivalent cameras without this type of manipulation will look the same as those which don't have it, when viewed as converted photo files in Photoshop or in print.

When two cars, both with identical weight to power ratios, other technical details and drivers, travel from one point to another in the same period of time, does it really matter if one has its engine power band configured differently, as to when both arrive at their destinations at the exact same time? To the observer, no. Same with the R3.

Sometimes, there is such a thing as too much information.