I thank you Sir! I will certainly sanity check all this on a tripod under more rigorous conditions if the weather allows but if anyone was hoping for this lens to be the magic bullet that finally got close to unleashing the performance of the sensor on the NEX-7 with a zoom then, if my lens is a representative sample and the results I had today are replicated when I shoot it in a more formal test, I can say that the hope will have been in vain...
Here are some samples at 16mm. The first (hills) series was focussed centre on the far line of trees. The second (tower) was focussed using flexible spot on the tower itself with no recompose. Both series at F4, f.6 and 8 and all images can be downloaded full size. They were shot handheld with stabilisation on, in RAW and then given my default low ISO LR treatment for this camera which is a +12 clarity, and 50/0.7/70/20 sharpening. And whilst I do appreciate that it will be necessary to re-shoot with a tripod etc etc, and that the distant hills are not equidistant at the edges and centre, I have shot these scenes a huge number of times with a huge number of cameras and lenses and I know how these results fit in to that meta-level database of results...
Tim Ashley Photography | Sony Zeiss E 16-70 | _DSC1840
Hope this is informative for now but I will try to do some more scientific testing tomorrow.