Exactly.
I know many Honda fans hoped for a competitive STR that would showcase what Honda can do, maybe even race and beat McLaren but these are unproven drivers in a chassis whose quality is also unknown to us.
There is really no yardstick for fans about where Honda is, all we can look at is general reliability and perhaps see if Honda updates line up with changes in performance.
And like you say, Red Bull have all the data on both engines, they know where Honda is relative to Renault and STR’s position on track is not relevant to that decision.