You have forgotton the very basic limitation of the lens vs. the eye. If you look a a scene that includes both background and foreground, your eye focuses first on one, then on the other. (More specifically, you usually use both eyes look at the scene). This is what you see. Now, when you attempt to capture the same scene and preserve it on film, it becomes necessary to sacrifice certain design advantages of they eye and use a lens to get it there.
The first thing to go is the third dimension. It’s loss and how to manage it is essentially the art of composition. The next sacrifice is continual focus. The lense must focus on one plane, some aspects of the picture will usually be out of focus (there are exceptions, such as when you focus on a two dimension subject – and note that most lens test charts are two dimensional – and when your view is blocked). Since most of us are limited to a few lenses (few if any carry hundreds) we must work around the limitations of what we have. This involves putting up with out of focus areas that could concievably be avoided with a different lens. Having described in principle WHY we must put up with less than a perfect reproduction of reality through a lens, the questin turns to the trade-offs possible in making a picture. Each weakness can be turned to advantage is the photographer (artist) is conscious of what he is doing.
Areas that are widely discussed and easily measured include sharpness, distortion and flare. More difficult to measure, yet still empirical, include contrast and color balance. One area that has recieved very little attention is how a lens renders the areas that are out of foucs. The area most of up probably do not pay any attention to is the out-of-focus portions of the picture (bokeh).
In sum, you CAN’T get “what you see” onto the film, and asking for THE piece of equipment that comes closest is surrendering an important area of artistic control to someone elses judgement. There is no “closest,” only trade-offs. Understanding this, the question becomes, “Given that I can have either this or that, which one best represents the scene as I wish to convey it?” And this is what makes being a photographer so much fun!