No. You’re better off with the M2 Max even if it’s a little more expensive. The battery life upgrade alone is worth it.

I would guess that the M2 launch was originally planned for Fall 2022 and this is them just returning to their regular release schedule. The M4 release is when I would guess they’ll do a more meaningful upgrade, since at that point they’ll have more access to the 3NM chips they need. I upgrade every 18-24 months but I recently got a Lenovo 7i Pro RTX 4090 laptop for gaming, Stats, and some other software related use cases. I still have my M1 Macbook Pro 14 inch base model so I’ll probably either upgrade to the M3 Pro in a few months for the battery life improvements or wait for M4.

Between those two options, the M2 Pro Base by far. However, if you feel like buying new(come onnnnn, a black Macbook Pro?!), the M3 Pro base model is also a good option.