1 - science

   does it meet the PDR recommendations on resolution, UV sampling, etc?
   (compact array should maximize brightness sensitivity; intermediates
   should have gaussian uv density; extended should have maximum resolution
   without forcing any fiber runs > 25 km)

   beam metrics

   uv metrics

   simulation results

2 - cost

   number of pads minimized (this is really a bit of a red herring though,
   until we have better cost estimates for foundations as a function of
   location on the site)

   is there apparent difficulty getting to some locations (implying longer
   roads and cable runs)?

3 - operations

   is one design easier to operate and maintain than another?

4 - flexibility & robustness

   how robust is the overall design philosophy to changes?

   how robust are particular designs to antennas being dead or pads being
   unusable?

   is the configuration style flexible ('fixed' vs. 'flowing' types)?

   are the 'hybrids' reasonable - including N-S elongation, and the
   hybrid between the largest intermediate and the extended configuration?

   what about 'multi-configuration' (which loses some of its meaning in
   the 'flowing' antenna move style) capability?


you can argue about the contents of each of the 4 categories, but i'm
pretty sure that the above 4 are the ones that really need to be compared
to each other when deciding on the configuration, both in design philosophy
and in the particular design.  this is nothing new, others have been pointing
all of this out for years - i have just put it into the 'scorecard' 
formalism...