Tilt/Shift vs. conventional wide angle

[Downrigger]

I'm using a loaner Nikon PCE-24mm f3.5 tilt and shift and kinda enjoying it. I had a 4x5 field camera before so have some feel for using the tilt shift feature. I like staightening the tall stuff (tall trees, mountains) with up-shift, pulling my depth of field to my feet with down-shift and forward tilt, etc.

I need (want) a wide angle lens for landscapes, (shortest presently is my old 35-70 AF) and have tried out the Zeiss ZF2 21mm which is does just beautifully. Then there's the Nikon 16-35 wide zoom with VR which is supposed to be pretty good and much less expensive than either the PCE-24mm or the (lovely) Zeiss.

Anyone have thoughts on how they'd sort out this choice here? The PCE is a lot of work (but fun) to use for it's useful effects, but can be shot straight on like a conventional (and pretty good) 24mm prime.

Maybe I should just flip a coin a couple times...

Thanks all

[loosecanon]

For most photography I use my wide zooms ( 12-24, 17 - 40). Occasionally the 24mm Tilt and Shift for jobs where is does a better job. The tilt of course can be simulated but not duplicated by post processing, and the shift duplicated by cropping a wider image , or correcting a tilted image, but with loss of resolution. A wide zoom is much more use so I carry it more often (there is a limit to the amount of gear one can carry) than my shift lens.