When I've replaced my current system with something much faster and with more memory, I'll start using NX2. Despite its kind of weird user interface, one thing's for sure: the u-point technology is remarkably effective and lives up to Nik Software's claims about it. The HSL-like controls and the mysterious but effective 'double threshold' feature are also great features. Not much of a contender for batch processing, though.
I've been getting reasonable results from Lightroom as well, though I'm not yet using a version that can make use of DNG profiles. I have my quarrels with its UI, but some of the features are outstanding, including the unusually well designed curve controls and the HSL adjustment panel (especially with 'targeted adjustments'). Pretty good highlight recovery, too.
Capture One is a mixed bag. I find that it sometimes provides the best possible rendition of fine image detail and it too has a good highlight-recovery feature. It does a poor job with Nikon D3 high-ISO shots, and I can't use it for those. There are some dumb flaws in the overall design, the user-selectable program options are laughably crude, and the color correction feature is extremely crude considering 1) the price; 2) how much better developed competing products' color-correction controls have become; 3) how long it took Phase One to develop this update and how much hype surrounded its introduction. IOW: after all that, all they could provide is a simplistic little 1990s-style color wheel whose tiny control point you drag around with the mouse? That's tedious (and tiring to use).
I suspect I'll be dividing my time between Lightroom and NX2 (once I have the more powerful machine set up). I have never found one converter alone to be sufficient for every possible image. I don't see why you couldn't do something in one raw processor and then import and process the same image in another. But even if you've saved your edits in 'sidecar' files, I don't think the second RAW converter would use those settings in the way the first one had used them.
As for sorting/rating images: in my world, Photo Mechanic wins that one hands down.