I think your anecdotes lines up a lot with what I've seen online, I am noticing a lot of codex users in particular appears to have discovered Opus 4.8 seems to make them very happy.

I am going to subscribe to Claude and try this out myself. I'm going to be very honest that I am currently finding codex to be very lacking, not from its generous usage limits but just the sheer number of repeated prompts to prevent its inclinations in getting stuck in a spiral, one which is very hard to get out of once it digs itself into a hole (I've had it refuse instructions despite desperate pleas and starting a new convo appears to fix it and hence why I wasn't sure if this Opus 4.8 issue was of fresh context but it appears to be very capable in ways that codex isn't).

Thanks for sharing your anecdote!