In article <31E1BF5C.E64@hpcrunch.che.vcu.edu>, pen7cmc@hpcrunch.che.vcu.edu says...

>My old Pentax is dying, so I've been considering the purchase of either a
>Pentax Z-1p or "a Nikon to be named later" (N90s perhaps) and have been
>plowing through the WWW lens test archives. I've found of some things note...
>In the following tables,

[lotsa tables, and conclusions drawn from them, deleted!]

>I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about the wisdom of these
>choices. I realize that many people buy the Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 D, but
>the Sigma 70-210 f2.8 D APO covers a slightly larger range, and is $200ish
>less expensive (filter money!). Overall, POP test results seem to be
>slightly better for the Sigma.

In my (not so) humble opinion, tests of the above sort, especially
when vastly condensed, are close to useless for getting a good idea
of how lenses perform in practice (for instance, color casts, flare particulars, variations in sharpness with distance, durability, actual center-to-corner performance variations at particular apertures, ETC.)
which may become very important to you when using a particular lens,
but may not show up at all in the tests - AND, tempting as it is (and
fun for you, maybe) to do a statistical analysis of faulty and/or
incomplete information, it is even more useless as a guide for
finding "the best" lens of a type, again, IM(NS)HO.

>Thanks for any help. I intend to keep whatever system I buy for a long
>time, so I'm particularly concerned about getting this right.

Some of us are obsessed with it....;-) But, to complicate matters, even
if your method for choosing lenses were valid, it still overlooks the
issue of sample variability...... A more valid way to continue the
selection process may be to run through Dejanews looking for 'net user's comments on lenses of interest to you. You may be surprised what those
user comments reveal about particular lenses that the "tests" didn't !

>Actually, I've probably had more fun assembling the chart above than I'll
>have using whatever I end up buying! Now I just need to start a web page
>with dozens of lenses listed this way...

Ummm, and add to the damage done by the web pages from which you started?!
No-oo-oo-oo...........!!!!!! ;-)
Uh, Hope This Helps