buy what you can afford

Generally a good idea with everything tech. It tends to get better and cheaper. So 100% don't buy features you don't need.

the industry stagnated and is nothing but paying for buzzwords now

I disagree, while it may be somewhat true on innovation, there are significant incremental improvements from generation to generation. Both in more powerful and efficient SOC in both CPU and GPU. Better Cameras, and better screens that have better nits and efficiency, and also some software features.

I'm especially impressed by SOC improvements, considering the expense has become insane to use the better production processes. The complexity of it is so extreme. The collective effort to put a new SOC product to production is estimated at about 50000 people. Just one EUV light needed to make a 4nm SOC cost about $100 million! Still they continue to progress the technology, despite the mind boggling difficulties.

The same goes for cameras, they improve significantly each year. An ordinary phone today can do what would take 1000s of dollars of equipment before digital photography. And digital photography started out being pretty bad, with the only advantage being you didn't need film. And it's still improving.

Flip phones might not be completely new, but they are improving and getting cheaper, that's at least one form of innovation. So the industry isn't entirely dead yet.