I can't believe you have so much difficulty understanding the problem with your post. The post only addresses one part of your argument as to why the magical microlenses are so so revolutionary in achieving superior levels of sharpness with the same lens, namely the size of the microlenses. The second part, which I expected to see discussed but never was, is WHY smaller microlenses make a difference in sharpness that cannot be achieved with the "regular" microlenses and highly skilled sharpening techniques. If you had to explain to a group of people who are not engineers why the Fuji microlenses are so significant, would you just trot out Brian Dube to deliver his scientific paper as it was written?
What makes me so skeptical about the magical microlenses thing is that I actually tested the GFX against another camera with the same sensor but with "regular" microlenses. Yes, if you just took GFX files into LR and applied the default sharpening in LR, they looked very sharp. However, they couldn't handle much additional sharpening without becoming crunchy. The X1D files did not look as sharp with the default sharpening in LR, but as soon as the settings were changed to achieve optimal sharpening in LR, the X1D files looked sharper. The same thing was observed by turning off LR sharpening, bringing the files into PS and using the same Focus Magic settings. Moreover, there are some really smart people working at Pentax, Phase and Hasselblad, and none of them reengineered the microlenses. Were they all just asleep at the switch? Or is there a tradeoff in using the magical microlenses that they considered a poor design choice? Soon enough we will know, as the next iteration of the 44x33 medium format Sony sensor will be released next year. We shall see if they all use the same size microlenses.
So, if I understand what you are saying about the HC lenses, the comparison I suggested wouldn't work because the HC lenses suck so bad. The magic microlenses only show their stuff with certain lenses but not others?
I did see your tests with the HC lenses on the GFX. I agree that the leaves on the trees at a distance looked bad. But to be candid, the leaves on the trees in all your tests look really bad to me. Last weekend, I photographed a tree at a long distance with the HC 210 and 300mm lenses and enlarged the files to 300% on the screen and the leaves did not look nearly as bad.
I said above that there is no magic in the small microlenses. They are a win for sharpness, as they are a bit -- but only a bit -- closer to the ideal point sensor. But they lower overall quantum efficiency and increase the probability of aliasing. Indeed, they are in some ways a return to the old days, before microlenses when fill factors were much less than 100%. It's not clear to me that they are a better overall tradeoff than having 100% fill factor. But then again, I am on record as being for AA filters on MF cameras, and that is not a popular position.
I addressed the sharpening question above, using the D800/D800E as examples.
As to why the GFX files get crunchy on sharpening, it may be that they don't need it. It may also be that it's hard to get a deconvolution kernel for a lens with so small an effective fill factor since the GFX is an outlier in that regard. Where did you get your kernel when you did your tests? In general, deconvolution sharpening works well when you have the right kernel and when the SNR is high to start out with, since sharpening adversely affects visible noise.
I did not say the HC lenses suck. On a physically-larger sensor of around 40MP, like the ones for which they were designed, they are pretty good. The sharpness of the file is the product of the MTFs of the sensor and the lens. If the lens is not delivering the sharpness, having a sharp sensor won't help much. If you think of it in terms of blur circles, the two add approximately as the square root of the sum of the squares, so the bigger circle takes over pretty soon. I never owned the 210 and 300 HC lenses.
You will note in all the discussion above, I never said that small microlenses are overall better than large ones, which is an opinion that it seems that you think I have.
Jim