Archie,
I'm giving the 40HR a hard look too, right now. I also just tested a Nikkor 24 PCe on my D3 which yields a field of view fairly close to the 40 on my P65+.
The Nikkor looked really nice. Another consideration I was just thinking about... the 40HR is supposed to have an image circle of 90mm. Given a 40mm x 54mm sensor, this yields only about 6mm of rise, a gain of about 11% in height for the overall composition. The Nikkor performed well through its full rise of 11mm which yields a height gain of 31% for the composition. HUGE difference!
I don't have a 40HR on hand to do practical testing, so this is all math at the moment, but MAN! I need to go reread Rainer's comparisons, but it looks like the dslr lenses are actually going to give you more movement with wide lenses.
Can anyone shed light on my hypotheses?
-CB