Summary (TL;DR)
An analysis of 17,871 thinking blocks and 234,760 tool calls from 6,852 Claude Code sessions reveals a quality regression in complex engineering workflows starting February 2026. Think depth dropped 67% by late February and was fully redacted by March 12. The read:edit ratio fell from 6.6 to 2.0, and stop hook violations (catching ownership dodging, premature stopping) rose from 0 to 173. User corrections increased 12x, and sentiment ratio dropped 32%. The degradation multiplied API costs 80x while delivering far worse results. Extended thinking is structurally required for multi-step research, convention adherence, and careful code modification.
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