I think you must have missed my last point Ripper - about how we're talking about different things.
I'm not saying GC in Unity is inherently bad. Not at all, as I wouldn't know. I'm saying it's been quoted as the reason for performance issues (for obvious reasons - as it halts everything else until it's done). In the same way - I could say the sun is the reason for sunburns - but that doesn't mean it's smart to stand naked outside without sun blocker.
If the official warnings about how to handle Unity GC in specific ways to avoid precisely the kind of performance issues in question isn't evidence enough - I really have no clue what would suffice.
Please remember that Unity provides a bunch of convenient methods for doing things - including how to easily instantiate and destroy objects. The fact that you script using C# - doesn't take away that it's the "Unity way" and how they intend for it to be possible.
That it's apparently also unwise in many cases and will cause problems with GC is hardly all on the developers. At least, I wouldn't say so. It's pretty obvious that many developers will choose the most convenient way to do things - and they're using Unity precisely to cut down on development time in many cases.
Here's a random reddit post, explaining how the Escape from Tarkov developers upgraded to a version of Unity with incremental GC - to fix their previous GC stutters.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Escapefrom...e_were_talking_performance_potential_stutter/
But, really, these posts are all over google - both from developers and tech savvy people.
No, it doesn't mean Unity = bad - it just means it does things in ways that a lot of developers struggle with.
As for your point about specific skillsets often being more expensive, that's not in dispute at all. I'm saying that having a skillset doesn't necessarily translate into being more skilled than people without that specific skillset.
Having a fancy and super expensive Vulkan guy on your team - doesn't mean that guy would necessarily be great at memory allocation or handling GC in Unity, for instance.
Again, your claim that "how skilled" developers are - is largely reflected by the budget, is simply not true. It's pretty self-evident, in my opinion.
Now, if what you meant to say is that senior developers get paid more than rookie developers - I would certainly agree. That's not really what I'm talking about, though.
Maybe it's because I've worked in IT all my life - and I've seen exactly what "senior developer" means in terms of actual skill.
But, as I said, I lack the stamina required to go endlessly in circles about this.
Too much time being spent on pointless stuff - and not at all what I enjoy exchanging about
Anyway, have fun!