Calibrating lens to camera .. have you done it and does it really work ?

Sounds like many people do the calibration successfully .. I am grateful to the information especially about cameras that have values for both wide/tele ends of a zoom ..

My main problem was not in the calibration process itself .. I followed it to the word .. I even did several focal lengths for the same zoom lens and did measurements from near and far etc .. My problem was that when applied in the field outside there in the real world using a zoom (not a prime in a studio) the calibration results were not good .. as a matter of fact they were worse than the uncalibrated shots as I shot the same shots both calibrated and uncalibrated .. none of the lenses I have are way out .. just a few calibration units one way or the other .. and I thought I may improve sharpness by a tick .. obviously not

That's why I posted the question thinking that maybe I was doing something wrong .. apparently not .. and there are so many arguments on the internet about how to do it and how to apply it and for which lenses at which focal end and at what aperture and the jury are obviously still out on this one ..

My feeling is getting a target like LensCal just to check the lenses .. if needing calibration then .. for primes I would do the calibration at the distance they would be normally used .. for the zooms I would calibrate the tele end wide open at near distance .. knowing that the far and the wide shots may suffer .. or otherwise just send for calibration .. or get another copy if it is a new lens