Consumer Reports does this too. I remember when they used to release their annual camera and tripod recommendations... all my photographer friends thought it wa

Consumer Reports does this too. I remember when they used to release their annual camera and tripod recommendations... all my photographer friends thought it was the funniest thing. Or their beer recommendations... many LOLs from my beer snob friends. These general review sites are not really "for" people who already know a lot. The state of knowing a lot necessarily changes priorities. I know a lot about photography--why? Because I have a motivated aesthetic sense of photography. I didn't just acquire all this knowledge by accident--I sought it out, in an opinionated way. So, my sense of what is important is going to be different from a random person's. The idea of sacrificing image quality to save a few ounces seems ridiculous to me; but most people don't want to carry a heavy tripod around. So Consumer Reports would usually recommend the lightest tripod that did an OK job.