[Rover]

The timing is nebulous - after all, the first HSM lenses started appearing 20 years ago. I remember a very favourable review of the 400/5.6 HSM from that period here in PZ (and I could swear there was a review of its 300/4 sister lens, but it's nowhere to be found). The Sigma 14/2.8 I have is pretty good mechanically - apart from the missing weather sealing, but that's the one area where Sigma is lagging to this day - while being only slightly more recent (no idea when exactly my unit was made though). Yet despite all the evolution and the switch to Global Vision they're still making a few godawful lenses from the late 90s like the 70-300 (and the test made by Markus has clearly proved it as inferior to pretty much anything in the class). Incidentally Canon is also making the dirt cheap 75-300 (or at least was producing these turds until very recently).