[kimmik (Kim)]

In theory, there are many eyepiece designs "better" than Plossl, which is your basic "good" eyepiece. But are there??

So far, i have not found anything that I can say "yep, i dont miss the 25mm plossl in any way whatsoever", even when price is no object. I dont mean just 25mm eyepieces, but everything considered is there one eyepiece that makes you never miss any aspect of the 25mm plossl again? As important as sharpness and AFOV are things that make viewing/using comfortable, like:

The 25mm Plossl:
22mm eye relief is excellent
No kidney beaning/blackout (i.e. minimal spherical aberration of the exit pupil) is excellent
Minimal field distortion/pincushion
Light, well balanced and tough
Pretty sharp across the field

Summed up, with a 25mm plossl on the scope, one can easily and comfortable see a nice clear image, without having to rebalancing the scope or making any thumbscrews super tight.

What I've used so far:
100deg ES20 - yes its sharp and huge fov, but ER is short and there's kidney beaning. its also big and unwieldy.
68deg 4 element and 5 element GSO - soft periphery, shorter ER, but i do quite like this eyepiece too.
60deg 6 element Celestron LX - good ER but kidney beaning, and is chunky.

The possible contenders from what I can see, are:
Nagler T6, similar size as the plossl, but better in almost everyway? not sure about kidney beaning or pincushion distortion as i haven't used one.
Orion Stratus, great 20mm relief (big 31mm eye lens), but 400g is heavy...
Panoptic 19mm? though ER is only 13mm

Does any particular eyepiece best just about everything the 25mm Plossl has, without compromise? Not just optically, dont forget ease of use and comfort of viewing.