I agree with you, Neopan 400 and 1600 should be considered. I have and decided they are not for me. It seems to me that TMY and TX can be shot at 400 and give similar shadows. TX is grainier, TMY is sharper, and both are affordable. That gives me enough options at 400. Neopan 1600 just doesn't seem to compete in my mind with TMZ or Delta 3200. It is finer grained but just not as fast. I'd rather shoot TX and push a tiny bit than shoot Neopan 1600. At the same time, if I need the speed or I want the look, I'd much rather shoot TMZ than push TX. TMZ is noticeably faster.
I'm beginning to form the opinion that when people talk about 'poor' tonality, a lot of times they are underexposing accidentally. From my experience, exposure (coupled with film speed) determine shadow detail. Contrast is mostly determined by development time. Those certainly aren't original thoughts - I make no claim to coming up with them.
Some films do shoulder quicker, or have longer toes, or have less latitude (and thus give you 'contrastier' results). But if you take films like Tri-X, TMY, HP5+, Neopan 400, and Delta 400, as long as they are exposed consistently and developed appropriately, the differences should be minor. They should all have roughly the same shadow detail and overall contrast. The contrast might be distributed a bit differently; films with a longer toe might have less shadow contrast but more midtone contrast. They might have different spectral sensitivity or grain characteristics. But if you are getting vastly different results from them, something might be amiss in your process.
On another forum, someone was telling me that Neopan is contrasty and Tri-X is super flat. I chalk that up to inconsistency in exposure, development, and post processing (scanning and/or printing).
