Ray, what the h-ell, I found that I couldn't work with the crop, I yearned to use the lenses I had for the purposes they were bought for, I could not go back to small dim viewfinders or inaccurately large AF points. My 24-70L is incredibly sharp, including the corners and certaily good enough for the 18X12" prints I make.
Nice shot of the waterfall, Pom. It's clear we're talking at cross purposes. I know you've tried the 10D and upgraded to the 1Ds, so your yardstick for a 'crop' camera is the 10D and you obviously and understandably find the 1Ds better in so many respects. I'm not arguing with that.
I'm really talking about what is possible with a crop format camera and making the point that at this stage of development the advantages of a camera such as the D2X probably outweight any disadvantages it might have as a result of not being FF. Nick has also expressed this point very well in his post.
For me, the arrival of the D2X on the scene was quite an eye opener. I'd read so often from owners of the 1Ds that this camera was capable of resolving everything that any good lens could throw at it and that there was therefore little point in going beyond 11 or 12MP. We now have a camera such as the D2x that can grab as much detail (and more) from the centre portion of a lens as the 1Ds can grab from the whole lens (read image circle or frame).
We should not forget that a full frame D2X sensor of the same pixel density would be 28MP.
Dettifoss, Iceland, only picture taken there with a 24-70L that I'm selling, the rock in the bottom left is so sharp it hurts.
It's a fact of life that most 35mm lenses fall off quite significantly in performance in that region between 15mm and 21mm from the centre, especially zooms. The 24-70 and 70-200 are no exception. There are exceptions such as the very expensive Canon 200/1.8.
The fact that your Icelandic shot is adequately sharp at the edges indicates the performance of this lens at the edges is probably as good as it needs to be in relation to the performance of the 1Ds.
It does not indicate the lens itself is as sharp at the edges as it is at the centre.
It seems clear to me, despite many comments to the contrary, the 1Ds is 'outresolved' by many fine 35mm lenses in that centre portion of the image circle up to about 25 or 30mm in diameter. Were it not so, then it would not be possible for a camera such as the D2X to exceed the performance of the 1Ds and come as close as matters to that of the 1DsMkll.
If you were to reshoot that waterfall using the same lens but a futuristic 28MP FF 1Ds MKlV, you'd probably find the edges would be just as sharp as in the old 1Ds shot but the centre of the scene would be noticeably sharper.