Jerry, you are starting to sound silly and defensive like so many Flexlovers I unfortunately have talked with in the past. Yeah I know Yaesu and Icom are threatening the existence of Flexradios.
You've got that wrong, Stan. I couldn't care less about Yaesu, Icom, Flex, or any other radio maker--I'm not a fanboy of any of them. I'm about to spend $3-4K on a new rig and just want to make sure I make the right choice. It's as simple as that. I believe you were in a similar position a year ago.
800x480 is entirely adequate on a small 7inch screen. Even on a 1080 32inch external monitor the Yaesu looks fine. Also I got a friend with a 7610 and he uses a 48inch monitor because he has eyesight issues. Even that big the 800x480 resolution is adequate. I am looking at my 101 screen right now and can read the tiny 4pt span scale at the bottom of the waterfall. perfectly sharp. Your 8-bit accusation IS quite laughable and not true.
It's a matter of perspective. I'm an embedded engineer and have worked on several products over the years where 800x480 would be laughably low-res. Yes, my 8-bit comment was a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.
The only time I see the 101mp spectrum screen going "chunky" is when the span gets set to lower spans like 5k. I agree the spectrum is fast , much faster than other radios. I did not like it originally but after a month or so of usage I prefer it over the slower averaged display with other radios. Also the 3DSS display is useful for certain band conditions that I allude to in a previous post. Since you will never own a 101MP I will not bore you with the details.
Averaging is extremely easy to do in FW, so Yaesu could have added it and pleased people like you who like it fast, and also pleased people who like it slower and smoother. Give people the choice, especially when it's so easy to implement. (An exponential smoothing function in C is literally one line of code. Try implementing a motor controller for an electric vehicle without averaging in the motor speed sensor control loop and the vehicle will drive like a 1925 Model T with a first-time driver behind the wheel.)
Researching a radio is like looking for a new wife. The pretty ones (with a wonderful display) are not the always the right choice. A ham that gets a wife with a pretty face and then finds out that wife don't know how to cook or wash clothes or get your beer will not be happy, trust me there are MUCH more important attributes than a pretty face.......
I'm not looking for a "pretty" display--I'm looking for a useful one. One that makes it easy to locate and tune to very very weak signals that are barely audible. As I've said before, with a waterfall display, operating is just as much a visual experience as it is an audible one. Just ask any Navy sonar operator.
A high rez display does not make a competitive radio. I am going to do CQWWCW this weekend and will rarely be looking at my spectrum/waterfall display. Unlike your SWLing pursuits, in CW contesting there is no time to be sitting around admiring your beautiful spectrum display.

A better way to state this is a high rez display, by itself, does not make a competitive radio, but it certainly helps. Just to clarify, I will never use whatever rig I end up buying for SWLing. I have several dedicated SDR receivers for that. This new rig will only be used for DXing. My DXCC totals have reached the point where I've got all the common stuff confirmed and only need the really rare stuff. I participate in contests, but only to pick up new DXCC band fills. The ones I need aren't the ones sitting on one frequency for hours at a time with a booming signal--they're the ones wedged between the big guns with a barely audible signal. More often than not, I find these guys by looking for very faint traces on the waterfall.
I could understand your rancor and disappointment if you owned the 101MP radio instead of just being an uniformed tire kicker. I never bashed Flexradio until I owned one for a while.
It's not rancor, and I'm not bashing the 101MP as I still haven't ruled it out. If I had, I wouldn't be posting on the 101 groups.io list. I just need to get the questions I have about the display answered without everyone and their brother jumping in with snarky responses fueled by their confirmation bias. It's entirely possible that I just had the rig configured incorrectly, and long-term users should be able to help me by pointing out what I did wrong. If I can identify these, I can go back to HRO and try again, this time armed with suggestions by owners of the rig who have actual experience setting things up right.