They did indeed cut corners if you want to put it like that.
No lidar in the P2S. But I for example don’t use the lidar anymore for flow rate fine-tuning. The standard filament profiles these days are usually so good out-of-the box that the lidar is redundant. Plus, since Bambu’s printers became a quasi-standard, many filament brands offer profile downloads anyways. I even noticed a tendency to over-extrusion using the lidar.
Same with first layer inspection. I cannot even remember anymore when I had a first layer issue. So I deactivated it.
The carbon rods? - As it turns out those were just over-engineered.
Thus, they did cut corners where it doesn’t hurt much - or at all. But I’ll admit that I envy the P2S a tiny little bit for the improved extruder and the quick-change nozzle.