I hesitated to submit this reply. I'm not trying to start a debate on camera settings. I just wanted to offer another point of view for discussion.
Just to be the contrarian here...
The FA Limiteds are some of the finest lenses I have used. They are sharp, especially when proper exposure settings are used with them. I have no experience with Irix lenses. Terry, what's your experience with editing photos?
I ask because I don't want my camera applying sharpening or contrast, etc. If I need to add contrast I'll do it myself while editing the photos. The first thing I do when getting a new digital camera is set it to "bright" and take all the other adjustment settings to "zero" so no additional saturation, contrast, or especially sharpening is added to my photos. With the FA Limited Lenses (or other nice lenses), I don't need extra saturation. A blurry photo is a blurry photo. Sharpening a photo doesn't fix a blurry image. Retaking the image fixes it. Sharpening a photo will quickly degrade image quality by replacing pixels with black and white pixels to add micro contrast.
This is reinforcement for the importance of getting exposure settings correct.
K10D and FA* 80-200
ISO 100
f/2.8
1/500
123mm
White Balance {0xA403} = auto (0)
Scene Capture Type {0xA406} = standard (0)
Contrast {0xA408} = normal (0)
Saturation {0xA409} = normal (0)
Sharpness {0xA40A} = normal (0)
Compression {0x0103} = JPEG compression (6)
100% crop
K-1 and FA 43
ISO 100
f/3.2
1/60
43mm
White Balance {0xA403} = auto (0)
Scene Capture Type {0xA406} = standard (0)
Contrast {0xA408} = normal (0)
Saturation {0xA409} = normal (0)
Sharpness {0xA40A} = normal (0)
Compression {0x0103} = JPEG compression (6)
100% crop