That doesn't mean that if your parameter count is big enough to handle the input, the next step can't more efficiently hand off [parts of] the query to a specia

That doesn't mean that if your parameter count is big enough to handle the input, the next step can't more efficiently hand off [parts of] the query to a specialised module. The emergent properties of LLMs learning maths and chess from text inputs alone are interesting, but specialised engines are much more efficient and more accurate.