You don't need to use every capability of a device to make it beneficial for you.
Let's stick with photography. Can someone who knows what they're doing get great results with cheap equipment? Yes, in many situations. Is it WAY easier with the right gear? Absolutely. Finding the right balance is tricky - no, you don't need a flagship body and lens to get started, but having a flagship or pro-grade body/lens from 1-3 generations ago can be huge.
I shoot Nikon, not Sony, but going from a consumer D50 body to a Pro D300 body was huge just in terms of ergonomics - more buttons to allow me to quickly adjust things without having to pull the camera from my eye and fumble through menus.
In the current generation, I finally moved to Mirrorless with a Z6ii which blew my mind and enabled so many more things - no, I wasn't "getting the full use" out of it and yes, I got some great shots with my old DSLR gear, but it made so many things so much easier that it made shooting fun and got me to carry the camera and take photos every day, which has been the biggest factor in improving my skills. Within the last few months I splurged and upgraded to a current-gen flagship (Z8) which amazed me once again - the Z6ii was more camera than I could fully exploit, but the Z8's ergonomics are just incredible - so many buttons, most of them remappable, allowing me to truly develop an instinctive way of shooting and allowing the equipment to get out of my way.
It's important to try to avoid loving gear more than loving the activity, but that doesn't mean that higher-end gear is "wasted on" amateurs.
Yeah I just could not afford this stuff (debt) and I bought it used, $2K for a body, $2K for a G lens ... Then you get the urge to start buying all the primes...
I'm back to the basics now trying to produce videos with an Nex-5n it's not 4K but very cheap.
