I totally agree. FPS is only important to some extent, the smoothness is to be more significantly targeted, ie a stutter free experience with 15 - 20 FPS over dense urban PG areas is a veritable trove.
I’ll buy the idea that the trees are the real culprit for a deteriorated smoothness.
Lovering tree quality might also work against it at the expense of worse overall graphics.
MS/Asobo may try and find a way perhaps to get rid of the tree models in the first place that come with the PG, automatically replacing them with their own trees but way more sparsely placed.
Sorry, I’m sounding like a boss whose whims never end…