Wow, what a time to pop into the thread.
Here are some things that you would not find in a "mid-gen refresh:"
- RT cores, tensor cores, and DLSS
- A several times more powerful GPU and CPU
- A new architecture in the GPU preventing automatic backwards compatibility
Whatever was cancelled, if it was being called a mid-gen refresh, it didn't have the T239 "Drake" SoC in it.
I also believe that, on a spectrum between Mariko and Drake, whatever was cancelled must have been much, much closer to Mariko in terms of feature set. One big reason to think this: the more distinct and newly featured a devkit or SDK was, the more likely its cancellation would lead directly to leaks of SDK documents, devkit photos, etc. People are much more likely to leak after a project becomes public (like the original Switch having SDK documents leaked days after its October reveal) or worse, gets cancelled.
And lastly, as others have said already, I just find it completely implausible that Nintendo would cancel major new hardware having significant new features like DLSS and ray tracing, after the stage where they've already brought third parties on board with devkits and SDKs.
The one thing I am reconsidering is the release timing. Because the late 2020 devkit timing information was a big part of cementing 2023 as the extent of the release window for me, if that information is no longer correct/relevant, it may be that the development timeline of NVN2 and T239 alone is not enough to definitively answer that question. I still think 2023 is the most likely answer, but hopefully there will be more reporting from people who can get their story straight.