Thank you all for your insight. I will stress that I think the addition of the culling technique was an important one, because for many users (especially those with low-end systems) the huge performance benefit would be preferable to a visual loss that many will not notice or feel bothered with indeed. An option to adjust it is the way to go, and hopefully there won’t be any more flame wars over the matter. We need to work as a community to request it, and I agree that it should be asked in the next Q&A!
I also have a low-end system myself (in fact it’s a bit too close to the minimum requirements), and based on others’ video footage I don’t think these side effects vary based on system specifications indeed. Over photogrammetry I’m also seeing the pop-in with camera panning at medium speed, sadly I cannot make a video of my own because I have to reinstall the simulator due to a bug which means I will have to wait for a week or so before using it again.
I think the main problem is that there is too much difference between the different levels of detail, because the simulator suffers from very poor shape retention. It is the reason that the terrain is morphing everywhere and the photogrammetry looks melted at a distance. It does not look very decent until the highest quality is properly loaded in, which is something the new panning pop-in exaggerates. Meanwhile, if the lower levels of detail properly maintained object shapes, the difference between them would be smaller which would make the pop-in less noticeable.
It was said that shape retention of photogrammetry is being worked on by the Bing Maps team and that it would come later this year, but according to the Feedback Snapshot it could come in 2022. We don’t know much regarding what they can do about the terrain morphing though, which is more properly documented in the following thread.