Do You Really Need To Spend Top Dollar To Buy The Best Lenses?

I made this image of this lighthouse in 2013 using a Lumix GX1 equipped with Lumix 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. Looking at it at 100% on my 27" monitor, it is not the sharpest photo that could be. But downsampled to Instagram, Facebook, blog post size or just sharing through email, it is certainly more than sharp and detailed enough. No additional sharpening, noise reducing plug-ins were used, just…