Hi, you’re right that there will likely be no noticeable difference in such prints. However, I believe they managed to reduce weight significantly for some of the new telephoto lenses and for some people that difference alone could be a good reason to upgrade.

Although the image quality of a 100% crop is usually not essential for the typical viewing conditions (medium sized print, web-sized image etc), it can be really useful for cropping. E.g. I don’t own any lens longer than 200 mm, but my 70-200 zoom is really great and it’s no problem to make a decent print that simulates 400 mm (provided small/medium size is enough).

I think you might want to point out the fact that many of us spend far too much time and money on the technical aspects of photography gear. I.e. it’s not uncommon that all of the latest really advanced professional gear is used for taking average holiday snapshots. I believe this tool overkill is rather common, not only in photography but in many hobbies. For example I have a friend who absolutely can’t understand why I spend that much money on cameras (he prefers to think of any piece of gear as “camera” regardless if it’s a camera, a lens, a flash…). On the other hand he buys a new car every year, he talks about nothing but cars, he only reads car magazines, and he uses those very expensive cars with big motors only for transportation from point A to point B - really meaningless . (Actually I’ve used this fact in “purchasing negotiations” with my wife: “Compared to being a car nerd, being a photo nerd is quite cheap - one doesn’t get much car for 1000 bucks, but you can get a great lens.”)

At least I’m aware that my gear isn’t what limits the quality of my photos - I have lots to learn about the “artistic” aspects of photography and I’m working on it. I’m also aware that I’ve been infected with the gear collecting disease, though my case may not be too severe (so far). I’m actually very happy to have the opportunity of using good gear while trying to learn photography, and I believe there are many other hobby photographers in about the same situation out there.