Funny, I've been reading a lot about Limited lenses here. Responded to one post that said it was stupid not to save up and buy Limiteds instead of buying lots of other lenses.
I took a look at all the reviews of the Limited, and Star, lineup that are currently available. I also looked at current pricing for each of them.
All the Limited lenses are rated 9.23+ in the Lens Review section. The Range is from 9.23 to 9.76 with many reviewers for each lens. Interestingly, the cost for the Limiteds, using Amazon's standard price as that # for these purposes, was from $360 to $1060. The highest rated lens also happens to be the most expensive lens on the list as well. Cognitive dissonance theory would tell us that the cost is why the rating is the highest. People rate things higher that cost more and there are loads of ways this has been demonstrated over and over again (e.g., same radio, same description, two groups, only difference is the cost attributed to the radio, more expensive is rated as a great radio, less expensive as a piece of junk). However, there is a curveball in this analysis: the lowest cost lens ($360) is the #2 rated lens at 9.67 and in the tight ratings rankings of the Limited lenses it is the only 9.6x rated lens placing it a full .10 higher than the #3 lens.
So, on a pure cost to ratings ratio basis the DA40 Pancake seems to be the best bang for the buck among the Limited lenses.
Now, the next question (which is also subjective) is: Is it worth 2.25 times the cost of the DA35/2.4?