RAW Converter Comparison / Challenge

Tim van der Leeuw wrote:

2. I would expect a RAW converter to reproduce a result of similar quality as out-of-camera without having to tweak sliders.

That is not my experience or expectation . I see it like this,...

The jpg made by the camera runs through a specific jpg engine that is programed by the camera developers to work in some special way.
If you allow me to try a thought experiment,...first imagine just one parameter, lets say "sharpness". You can see in the EXIF what value was used for the jpg,... "+1", "+2" , etc. But what does that value mean? Only the camera developer would know exactly how the jpg image is sharpened with a setting of "+1" or "+2" . How should a program like ACDSee or any other (3rd party) software know what that particular camera sharpening logic actually does with that setting? (even it it were to use the EXIF values) It also is quite likely that the sharpening logic works differently in each camera type.
ACDsee has it's own sharpening logic controlled by some sliders. When a RAW image is opened into the develop mode, the specific ACDSee sharpening logic is used to sharpen it, using first some default setting that you can set. This sharpening effect will not be the same as performed by the camera!

The same is true of course with all the many other parameters that control an image.

You start tweaking sliders to get a result _better_ than what you can get out of camera, or to achieve a degree of creative vision that you can't get directly out of camera.

I start from scratch with my RAW's and adjust each image to taste. Usually trying to make an image that I took closer to the "reality" that I experienced when taking the shot.