Yes I do.
The geometry engine could be being used yes. Especially if it's an integral part of the graphics pipeline (i.e. you MUST go through it in order to process vertices.).
Yes, I do. It is not much different than the PS4 development environment and the SDK is absolutely very similar. The RT is the different tech that needs to be mastered as well as the I/O. Eveyrthing else will have to just "work" with the developers graphics engine. We make our graphics engine complete devoid of the hardware spec. We have to because hardware specs change.
Not as much as people like to think. Killzone, The Order 1866, Infamous, etc.. is not much inferior to the launch games of the PS5 today. There is no tech in the new games that supercedes those games from the PS4 days. PBR shaders are still the same. Shadows, Volumetric clouds, anisotropic filtering, foliage rendering, animations, water, etc.. are all THE SAME! The techniques to render them are all STILL THE SAME.
GoW isn't doing anything MORE technically than KZ:SF. like AT ALL! The sole reason why you think GoW "blows" KZ:SF out of the water is purely for aesthetic reasons. NOT because of technology reasons.
This topic doesn't have to be complicated if you guys were honest with yourselves.
PS3->PS4 hardware techniques were vastly different. That forced developers to get accustomed to the new paradigm and different architecture.
PS4->PS5 is NOT THE SAME AS BEFORE. Period. They are more alike than ever before.
ASSUMING THIS WILL CONTINUE FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION just to give yourself a big wishful hope of even better visuals is completely delusional. We don't follow the SAME PATTERN of development forever. It will not FOREVER always be EVERY GENERATION that developers "have to get familar" with the hardware. You guys need to embrace this change.