No, it really isn't.
The basic point I am trying to make is that it is an optical system. Keyword: "system". When you are talking about the optics of a riflescope, all the different aspects of the image are not independent of each other. If contrast is very poor, resolution does not matter. If resolution is very poor, great contrast will not help you.
If there is severe CA, it is an indication of color management issues. Poorly handled CA, also often goes hand in hand with lower contrast. Flare control issues together with CA, really blur the edges of whatever you are trying to see. And the edges get screwy in different ways depending on where behind the eyepiece you are.
And so on and so forth. A blanket statement along the lines of "I do not care about CA" is pointless. CA is a symptom, not the problem itself. Same for a bunch of other image characteristics.
ILya
Good points.
First thing I would note is that we all know the term color blind but don't always have a good handle on what it means. Not to mention that there is really no standard for how we view not only color but other factors as well.
In another life I was a serious photographer and there is a term photographers use; they will say an image pops. Lots of factors go into pop. But one thing I would point out is back in the day photographers used a black and white "resolution chart". As time passed this changed and a color resolution chart evolved that was much better than a black and white chart to determine how a digital sensor (or color film for luddites) captured an image.
Digital images allowed a much better way to measure images. In the old days of black and white there was something called a knife test, a knife was placed on a white paper and photographed and the gray between the black of the knife and the white of the paper was noted. Digital images allowed a different measurement. The number of pixles of gray between the blackest black and the whitest white was measured. Even with top quality digital cameras there were maybe 6-10 pixles that were not pure black or white (an exception was the Sigma digital cameras that used the foveon sensor and got it down to 3-4 pixles but suffered from poor light performance). This test was often called a rolloff test, as in rolling off a knife edge.
Anyone who has seen CA will understand how it affects rolloff and reduces the amount of pop in an image. You can also see how a color blindness in the deep violet area might reduce the amount of CA someone saw.
Another real consideration in pop is what is called depth of field. When you set the parallax to 10 yards thing at 500 yards are out of focus, in fact depending on the depth of field things at 30 yards (or even closer) may be out of focus. So stuff in focus will pop in comparison to the out of focus stuff.
This is just a long winded post so I can ask if anyone has seen depth of focus data on scopes? Sorry for the long post but I have no adult supervision and way too much time on my hands.