John, I've read those articles long ago; it is not very polite to speculate what I do or don't know. You stated "And the 58mm f/1.4G AF seems to be over-priced. It is midway between the 50 Ai-S and the Noct from f/1.4 to f/4, yet excels at nothing at any point, until f/8, where they are all fairly comparable" in your post quoting the Imatest MTF graphs from photographylife. On the other hand, according to photographylife (and other review sites) the 58/1.4 AF-S has less CA than the Noct, and on the topic of flare and ghosting the authors say "If you are worried about ghosting and flare, you should avoid the Noct and most other Nikkor classics." Correspondingly they say on the 58/1.4 AF-S: "While Nikon says that Nano coating reduces ghosting and flare, over years I discovered that Nano coated Nikkor lenses also greatly enhance colors and overall contrast. This is especially true when working with back-lit subjects and high-contrast scenes. [clip] As you can see, the lens seems to handle ghosting and flares well, even when pointed directly at the sun."
Personally I like the colours and the fact that the image doesn't wash out so easily when light is coming towards the lens when using the AF-S 58/1.4, and I use this lens often in my photography of events and people (where window light often dominates and would likely wash out images shot with older Nikkors). I also need the autofocus and have very bad experiences trying to focus f/1.2 and f/1.4 lenses manually on Nikon DSLRs (using the OVF). I have many manual focus lenses but none of them are faster than f/2 for this reason, and I typically use those only for landscape and close-up photography, not moving subjects. For tripod based shots of stationary subjects, live view may give the needed confidence in focusing but it doesn't work for kids running around in a room, playing, or people dancing in a dim venue at night.
Every seriously designed lens has its own advantages and disadvantages compared to its peers. "Excels at nothing" is quite harsh and subjective.
