I have some information up at
<a href=http://www.geocities.com/darwins_bulldog1138/nationals.html target=new>http://www.geocities.com/darwins_bulldog1138/nationals.html</a> regarding, for the most part, the objective
descriptions of the tournaments which bill themselves as
nationals.
With that said, here's some opinion.
As
previously discussed on this board in laborious detail, the
Chip Beall NAC has every possible legitimacy problem
you could think of, and it's bleeding off good teams
pretty quickly. While it's the oldest tournament and
biggest in terms of volume, it's a pretty sorry
event.
The ASCN tournament is well-liked by those who go,
but is still far from a collegiate format if that's
what you're looking for. The Panasonic is so wacky
compared to what we do that it's barely "quizbowl" per
se.
I would say that the PACE NSC and NAQT HSCT
tournaments have the most legitimacy, and any team that wins
both of them in a year, as State College did last
year, has removed all doubt that it is the
best.
Of course, we could always just take a poll
(<a href=http://www.geocities.com/darwins_bulldog1138/poll.html target=new>http://www.geocities.com/darwins_bulldog1138/poll.html</a>).
--M.W.