Contextual specificity - sounds real fancy don't it? ;) To explain, I'll need to mosey round the barn a few times; hope you'll bear with me.
One underlying problem in photography forum discussion is that photographic hardware serves several very different groups, including:
A) Pure technical shooters, doing things like crime scene evidence, medical documentation, infra-structure trouble-shooting, etc., in which visual appeal is not a major component.
B) Snapshooters, primarily recording family events, sight-seeing, local sports, and the like - in most cases, I would guess, with little concern for visual appeal.
C) Mixed technical + aesthetic shooters, doing things like product spreads, advertising, stock, photojournalism, etc., that has both a technical component and a visual appeal component.
D) Pure aesthetic shooters doing art photography.
Since practitioners of all the above groups may have reason to visit any given photography forum, much heat but little light is generated on-line when statements are made assuming one sub-domain but are taken by readers as applying to another domain. One photographer may quite validly find it critical to his work to obsess over lp/mm, while another photographer may regularly smear Vaseline on the front element of his lens.
But on top of that, even when the discussion is purely within the microcosm of art photography, there are still multiple camps who regularly fail to take the perspective of the other camps into account, including:
D1) There is a tradition in art photography that perhaps centres around the tripod and the Ansel Adams 16x20" landscape, in which photorealism and clarity of detail are key factors.
D2) There is a very different tradition that perhaps centres around handheld and the b&w work of depression-era street photogs, in which atmosphere and grit are key factors.
D3) There is the camp that focuses on legacy processes, such as the Daguerreotype and dye-transfer.
D4) There is the camp that works within the tradition of experimental and conceptual approaches.
I don't think the issue is typically that practicing members of clan A don't understand at least the basics of the needs of clans B, C, and D, and I don't think the issue is typically that the members of each camp don't grant the legitimacy of the other camp's existence or their genuinely differing hardware needs. The issue is simply that over and over again the person posting fails to specify to which domain his statements apply.
This site is still named Luminous Landscape; and there was a time when forum members could reasonably assume that posts were directed toward D1 photography (to use the arbitrary schema, above). I remember it well and fondly. ;) But that time is now past. What hasn't changed is that this forum does generally select for a certain level of intelligence ... or at least professionalism. So I appeal to those who possess those qualities and who have managed to wade through my rambling discourse thus far simply to
Remember to specify the context to which your remarks apply when you post them.
As Smokey the Bear says: You too can help prevent forum fires! Thanks, y'all, and have a great day.