If you go to photography forums it’s not the professionals buying the most expensive equipment, it’s “Uncle Bob.”
Not that professionals don’t have need of the high end stuff, depending on what they do. If you’re a sports or wildlife photographer you might need that $15,000 lens. If you’re a studio photographer with high end clients you might want that aforementioned megapixel beast.
Try to look up information on either and you’ll be guaranteed to see some truly bad photos by people that care primarily about gear and have the money to spend on it. The Nikon D750 is still a well regarded wedding photography camera, and it came out on 2014. That’s a long time, technology-wise. I upgraded one of mine last year to a D850 and another this year to a Z6ii, and I don’t feel as if I’ve gained all that much. They did what I needed them to do.
I think photography forums have serious sampling problems that don't accurately reflect sales of camera equipment, and I wouldn't take informal or formal surveys of photography forums as evidence that only rich 'uncle bob' buys expensive camera equipment.
My experience is that many professional shooters have much larger lens and accessory collections, have much more modern cameras and generally tend to have 2-3 of them for the purpose of having a second lens ready to shoot and a spare body on hand. For every uncle bob there are a lot of small time pros with 3x cameras as good as bob's not posting about them on forums.
I think that in general many 'professionals' aren't shooting with crazy cameras because they don't need them. a Used 5d2 is an amazing camera and its super cheap. It produces professional pictures, provided you can take them.
But the build quality and feature set make it a pro camera, not its price.
I completely agree with you in the regular pro/prosumer end of things. I have 3 D750s, a D610, a D850, and a Z6ii. I have a complete set of 1.4 prime lenses, and some high quality zooms on the long end. I’m “just” a portrait and wedding photographer.
In the ultra high end things get a bit wonky though. Most pro photographers don’t want to deal with the downsides to something like Nikon’s 58mm f/.95 lens, or a medium format digital camera. They’re niche, and have niche use cases.
Not that professionals don’t have need of the high end stuff, depending on what they do. If you’re a sports or wildlife photographer you might need that $15,000 lens. If you’re a studio photographer with high end clients you might want that aforementioned megapixel beast.
Try to look up information on either and you’ll be guaranteed to see some truly bad photos by people that care primarily about gear and have the money to spend on it. The Nikon D750 is still a well regarded wedding photography camera, and it came out on 2014. That’s a long time, technology-wise. I upgraded one of mine last year to a D850 and another this year to a Z6ii, and I don’t feel as if I’ve gained all that much. They did what I needed them to do.