Clone-the-site vs blueprint: the staging tactic split

Clone-the-site vs blueprint: the staging tactic split
Heard this week: ops leads are arguing about how to spin up environments, and the managed hosts are picking sides for them.
— One-click clone (Kinsta, WP Engine) is fast and forgiving for one-off client work
— Reusable blueprints/templates win when you launch the same stack fifty times
A source tells us the agencies scaling cleanly stopped cloning prod and started shipping from a known-good blueprint, because a clone carries every sin of the original. Word is the hosts know this and the blueprint feature is where they're competing now, quietly, in changelogs.
Unconfirmed, but we hear one big host is about to make blueprints a paid add-on.
Watch this: whoever gives blueprints away keeps the new-agency cohort.