Jony Ive's former design team is nearly all gone from Apple, has it mattered?

I feel like Ive's tenure at apple was more an indication of top-to-botom product quality than design differentiation (though that was a factor at the time). At Apple as across big business the race now is to reduce costs while keeping sales the same to promote the illusion of growth. Under Jobs it felt like differentiation and quality were the brand. Today, iPhone is the whole brand.