To Ray: about I have nothing against you adopting that perspective, but what has it for to do with Richard Sexton's article, since he clearly has a somewhat different set of main considerations.
Everyone has a different perspective. That's what being an individual means. Even inseparable twins, with two heads and one body, can have a different perspective, each from the other.
Hopefully you are not suggesting that every photographer should share your apparently lower priority on considerations like accurate manual focusing, quick and convenient manual focus on an off-centre subject, dynamic range, or the types of lenses available (as opposed to just their quality).
Of course not. I'm quite opposed to the herd mentality. The interesting aspects of discussions such as this, and I also include critiques of any photographs, are the
reasons expressed for liking, disliking, agreeing, disagreeing, and so on.
Sometimes reasoning can be flawed, or not supported by the evidence. For example, in your above statement you imply that I consider dynamic range as one of the lower priorities, outside of the 6 main priorities that I listed. I think that is an oversight on your part, so I hope you are grateful for my correcting you.
One of the 6 main issues I mentioned was 'noise'. Dynamic range is all about noise, although specifically noise in the shadows rather than noise in the midtones, but noise nevertheless. So obviously I consider DR capability one of the main considerations.
Likewise, the term 'quality' as applied to lenses can refer to more than the MTF response. A telephoto lens has the quality of being able to render distant objects sharp, bearing in mind that sharp is a relative term. Even if the MTF response of the telephoto lens is poor, it will likely still do a far better job of rendering distant objects sharp, than the most expensive wide-angle lens available.
But you do seem to imply that when you shift from speaking of your idiosyncratic perspective to the more general phrasing "issues one can learn to adapt to, or are limitations one can learn to tolerate". This one is not interested in adapting to or tolerating weaknesses like poor manual focusing capabilities, a lack of zoom lenses covering my preferred combination of FOV range and weight, or the lack of good macro lenses.
As regards adapting to or tolerating weaknesses such as poor manual focusing capability, would you care to explain why you consider poor, or 'less than ideal', manual focusing capability to be one of the major concerns?
For example, do you frequently take shots with very wide apertures resulting in a very shallow DoF where accurate focusing is more critical and autofocusing is not up to the job?
If you were offered a choice from two, new, cutting-edge cameras which differed only in the respect that one camera boasted an unprecedented, accurate autofocusing system in all types of lighting and with all lenses designed for the camera, but had only an average manual focusing capability; and the other camera boasted an unprecedented manual focusing capability, but had only average autofocusing capability, which would you choose?
I would choose the camera with improved autofocusing. Perhaps at this point I should clarify what I understand as the distinction between manual focussing and autofocusing. If you think that focal length is not a 'quality', perhaps you think that manually moving an autofocusing square in the viewfinder, using one's thumb, constitutes manual focusing. I hope not.
But I agree there is a certain manual dexterity required in that process.