I'm not attacking anyone and as I said, I do respect your opinion. The extra stops are not worth the $ to you - that's fine, that's your opinion and a lot of other fine people share it. You prefer the Tesla to the Italian road jewelry, can't argue with that, different strokes. I'd love to take them both out for a weekend and I love what Tesla is doing

I don't want people to be misinformed though - I figure people are on the forum to have fun and in this section to either show and get some CC or to learn something about Photography - you state that the faster a lens is the softer it is - sorry that's just not true. Please tell me that you think the 100% crop attached of a bald eagle is soft - and on the computer if you look at the previous photo of the sandhill crane being harassed by hundreds of blackflies, you can see the wings of the flies
Perhaps you're speaking of the blurring effect you can achieve with a fast lens, to isolate the subject from a background or to emphasize a certain portion of the image with selective focus, something you can't so easily do with a slower lens or aperture. That's why a 200mm f2 lens is $4000 more than a 200mm f2.8 lens, and both would be considered fast and two of the sharpest lenses on the planet. There is simply no comparison between the two for a portraitist.
Also the statement that you can just increase the ISO one stop and get the same amount of light - true, but your quality will go down. You might get away with it and it might or might not be noticeable in your presentation format, but no matter how good your camera's high ISO abilities are, the best quality will be found at the lowest (base) ISO.
Also sorry about the previous smiler typo