Often it's the lens that results in poor quality images. You can get a RPi sensor with CS mount and add your own lens of your choosing. It's been a huge upgrade in quality and is relatively easy to do.
Routing tables need to be limited in size in order for hardware to decide where to route packets fast enough. In the past hardware was more cpu and memory bound than the present.
It has been done successfully in the past. All you need to do is add the appropriate lens to focus further away.
Here they used an optical flow sensor for obstacle avoidance in a canyon. The closer to one side you got the faster the terrain would pass by the sensor. Allowing the UAV to self correct.
SB50 allows for 4 and 5 story apartment buildings near "high quality" bus routes. This is a not the same thing as just allowing development near transit stations. If you look at a map of LA almost everything qualifies for development.
There is 5G and there is 5G mmWave. They are two separate parts of "5G". There are still advantages to sub 6GHz standard cell phone frequencies such as lower latency and higher throughput.
The disadvantages you mention only apply to 5G mmWave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Interconnect_Network