> is RTICv2 leaning more towards hard real-time

RTICv2 async tasks with prio is exactly the same as embassy-executor's InterruptExecutor. Works the same way, has the same realtime guarantees.

What RTIC adds is the resources with priority celiing. 

> i read several times from people here who used the embassy executor within an RTIC task

I wouldn't recommend this with RTICv2, there's no advantage vs using the RTIC-builtin executor