Revisiting: Theoretical plates: useful number or ritual?

Asking directly, because I could not find a straight answer: Revisiting: Theoretical plates: useful number or ritual?

Asking about Theoretical plates directly, because I have read four threads on it and each answered a slightly different question.

The version I want answered is the narrow one: given the method stated below, is the result within what anyone else has seen? I am not asking what it means yet.

Method, numbers and the two assumptions I am aware of making are below. If the assumptions are wrong that is more useful to me than agreement.

Theoretical plates is a good example of a question where the honest answer is boring and the interesting answers are unsupported. I would go with boring.

Before anything else: what was the gradient, and at what wavelength? Area percent at different wavelengths is not the same number even on the same sample because different species absorb differently at different wavelengths. With the method stated, I can tell you something useful. Without it, all I can say is that there is one large peak.

On the opening post — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

Detection wavelength: 214 nm detects the peptide bond and is relatively insensitive to composition. 280 nm detects aromatic residues and is strongly composition-dependent. Area percent at one wavelength is not area percent at the other.

I am confident about the direction and much less about the magnitude.

The thing about Theoretical plates that took me longest to accept is that a plausible mechanism is not evidence of an effect. It is a reason to look, not a result.

Posting my Theoretical plates numbers with the method attached so they can be discounted properly. Uncontrolled, unblinded, and collected by someone who wanted a particular answer.

This follows post #6 rather than contradicting it.

Injection volume matters because column overload distorts peak shape, and an overloaded main peak can swallow a small neighbour. A certificate without injection volume is missing something load-bearing.

The number is defensible. The precision I gave it is not.

No disagreement from me. Posting only so the question does not look ignored.

I read post #7 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

Counterpoint on Theoretical plates, offered without confidence: the same observation is consistent with a much duller explanation, and nobody has ruled the dull one out.

Post #11 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.

The most useful reply I ever got about Theoretical plates was a request to state my units. It sounds like pedantry and it has saved me twice.

That reframing is the whole thing. The facts I already had.

Retention time is only comparable within a laboratory on a given method. Quoting a retention time across two reports as evidence of identity is not a valid comparison.