“Lighter” Deep Research (venting!)

I am increasingly frustrated with OpenAI and ChatGPT, to the point where I am genuinely considering cancelling my subscription.

I recently used Deep Research and accidentally burned through several queries because it continued running even when the option was unchecked. When I reached 15 remaining, I assumed that would be enough to finish what I needed. Instead, I was shown a message saying that my remaining queries were powered by a “lighter version of deep research”, and the results were TERRIBLE.

At that point, I may as well have used Grok for free. It would have searched more sources. The output I received was based on shallow, poorly formed web searches, was only a few hundred words long, and was barely on topic.

What really frustrates me is this decision: WHY give users 15 almost useless “deep researches” instead of allowing a smaller number of REAL deep researches?

In practical terms, this means we no longer get 25 deep researches with Pro. We get TEN, unless we increase the monthly subscription TENFOLD to $200. The remaining fifteen are effectively USELESS “lighter” deep research. This feels like a MAJOR CON added to the list, while the PRO list keeps shrinking with each update.

I have been with OpenAI since the very beginning, including red-teaming, and I used to actively defend it. That makes this especially disappointing.

Is Grok’s “Think Deeper” equivalent to what OpenAI now calls deep research? Because if it is, I may seriously switch.

The situation is not entirely straightforward. ChatGPT’s image generation is excellent, it renders matplotlib charts directly in chat, and the code interpreter works well most of the time, all things Grok currently lacks. That makes this a difficult decision.

That said, the latest 5.2 version of ChatGPT also feels like the most nanny-soft iteration so far, and it has become unreliable with certain types of content.

Perhaps I am overreacting, and the rational response is simply to accept having 10 deep researches per month instead of 25. Still, I cannot afford $200 a month just to regain functionality I effectively already had.

Is there ANY way to get more proper deep research without upgrading to $200, other than paying for a second Pro account?

Is Grok really a decent alternative for "deep" research?
// maybe it's worth getting grok as well, instead of a 2nd pro account?

Ugh....

Thanks!