It is unbelievable how in the dumbass Canon fan boy's world eye auto focus has become so important and an awesome feature overnight. The moment one is critical about Canon, Canon fan boys immediately tags them as Sony fan boy and that is true for Nikon fan boys as well.
I, like you love to shoot with Canon and really want Canon to lead the pack in terms of technology, photo and video features, image and video quality, etc but Canon has been in a long hibernation. Canon lenses alone are a great reason to stick with Canon. Lately I am disappointed with Sony that they still do not offer a fully articulating touch screen and the touch feature does not work in menus, a better ergonomic body (I know a7r4 but I still feel that is not good enough). I truly cannot understand why Sony cannot address those.
So how did that go for Canon fan boys
Initially all mirroless cameras are toys and not considered as cameras until Canon released a toy
Then the lack of dual card slot is a big deal until Canon did the same thing. Don't get me wrong I definitely like to see dual card slots in a $2k+ camera
Eye auto focus was a gimmick until Canon got on-boarded on to the same gimmick. Now all of a sudden that is a great feature.
Fan boy's world (not just canon but applies for everything) is always mysterious and there is no room for common sense there.
Canon catching up with other manufactures I still really doubt it. IMO no matter what Canon will always find unbelievable ways to cripple their products like the 24fps saga, single card slot, UHS 1 slot, etc yet fan boys will defend every foolish decision by Canon as if they have vested interest in Canon. As a wildlife photog I see myself shooting with both Sony and Canon (and that's what corporates wants so they can extract more $ from customers) for the foreseeable future. If Canon ever comes up with a 200-600mm lens and they catch up with Sony in terms of technology and features I will definitely get rid of Sony but I have no hope on Canon at this point.