Anyway, this is a photo thread and although scientific approaches are interesting, we care about the photographic result and in this forum we look how pixel density affects our photography.
Some people care about the scientific side of things, others don't. I think that no-one should dictate how others approach their hobby or occupation.
To a photographer a raw file has a meaning only in what it shows to him on his monitor when he opens it and the highlight DR that he sees
One could equally say that a true photographer never will discuss battery life, as it won't appear as an artifact in her images. But for many photographers battery life is important to get the pictures that they want, and for them, direct measurements of battery life could be a lot more meaningful than staring only at jpegs. I think that the measured performance of raw files is an important indicator of critical elements of image quality if tests are properly conducted and interpreted (something that regretteably often does not happen).
I think it is important to know that raw-files usually represent a linear measurement of light hitting the sensor (limited by noise and saturation). No shoulder, no s-curves, ... It is equally essential to know why a non-linear response is often applied before the image is displayed on a monitor or print. Human visual perception plays a part in it, but only to answer the "whys", not the "hows".
-h