There will always be some primes that out resolve even the best zoom lenses, but there are always caveats. Primes are fun and superior often as long as the subject remains stationary or at a more or less fixed position from the camera, if not manual primes become increasing less desirable and even AF primes loose an advantage in resolution. How much exactly can you crop off an image with a manual prime lens before its resolution catches up to a lesser zoom or even a good zoom??? If you lose 10% of the resolution advantage due to focus failure or poor cropping, is that enough to cancel any advantage or close the distance? Just posing the question, in a perfect world and stationary subjects and test charts, a manual prime may have an advantage, but in the real world, I might bet, it is not so often the case. In activities like sports or moving wildlife, I doubt there is any real life advantage. My only primes at the moment are macros for a reason, most of the time the subjects are confined or stationary. For the rest, I find zooms a necessary trade off. Landscapes are one subject where the tradeoffs probably go both ways. Somewhat stationary, but IF you can not use your feet to change position or obtain the better cropping, the zoom will also achieve better end results despite being at a resolution disadvantage to start with. Also changing the foot position changes perspective which also may have negative effects on the overall shot and not desirable.
All this obviously has nothing to do with a fact that other things besides ultimate resolution is what makes a great picture GREAT most times. Controlling, recognising or using the light is, and the more you can recognise those factors, the less the lens quality ultimately matters up to a point.
Obviously equipment matters only as an ends to a means, to get the job done, in sports more so than other types of photography, but it alone will not make you able to create great images.
