A lens is a lens is a lens

Over the past few months I have been learning a lot about lens' and quality.  In the past as far as video is concerned people buying cameras where mainly concerned with the feturs and quality a video camera, but totally neglect the lens as a part of the equation.  And I totally and completely understand this mentality.  Why?  because for decades camera companies made us choose between crap image quality in comparison to a more crapy image quality.  So consumers like my self are forced to buy in to CCD image sensor size that was smaller then an 8mm film image. Even george lucas' star wars episode 1 $100,000 camera that was a 1/2 inch did not even come close to the normal focal length 8mm film had.