In article <4be5ff$met@griffin.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk>, ibx@cs.nott.ac.uk says... (most of post giving good reasons [but not correct] why f1.4
50mm Nikkor should be better than the f1.8)
>If the person who asked the original questions emails me then I'll see >if I can find the comparative performances for those two Nikon lenses >from a comprehensive test report produced by a major UK magazine.

Why not look up "SUBJECTIVE Lens Evaluations (Mostly Nikkors)",
which is probably no more than 250 posts behind this one in rec.photo.equipment.35mm/misc? I have used many of these 50mm's and checked them all out, and your assumptions, while appreciated, do not agree with my findings (nor do I agree with some "test" reports, which often test for the wrong things in terms of use). Both lenses are
good, but with subtle differences at the widest couple of stops.
They are about equal in quality, but the quirks of each may lead you
to one or the other for particular uses (same comment applies to the
50mm f1.2, the older, larger f1.8, and the 50mm f2 also).
Hope this helps.