I hate to ruin a healthy debate with a fundamental question BUT for the guns we all shoot (i.e. excluding M60's and mini-guns) does the type of lube matter one bit when we talk about wearing out? In other words what is the failure mode of a gun with 20,000 rounds through it? or 100,000 rounds?
My perspective is that lube does not have a whole lot to do with guns wearing out, as most of the wear occurs in areas where there is metal to metal battering of the parts causing wear, not surface to surface sliding or rotating wear. Think about it... in a 1911 by the time you have REALLY worn the slide to frame fit on a 1911 what are the barrel lugs and lock up going to look like? Ever know anyone with a 1911 that had a "little tight" slide to frame fit? It might go an easy 10k rounds before one notes a change in slide to frame fit. Likewise when lockup and groups degrade in a 1911 often fitting a new barrel that locks up tight fixes this without touching the frame to slide fit.
Likewise when revolvers go out of time, have frames that are streatched, etc. is this a condition that lubrication would have fixed or helped with? I don't think so, again it's more about parts battering one another and high round counts than a rotating shaft, gear, sliding fit becoming worn to the point of not being serviciable.
Is lube important for a gun to function? Yes, I pick my lubes for carry guns based on them staying where I put them and keeping the gun functioning, and hopefully making cleaning easier. At the same time I know that no matter what I pack in the the lug area of my 1911 it is not going to change the fact that the metal parts batter against each other.
So as interesting as it might be to test one lube against another, I am not sure that even if one lube "protected" twice as good as the other if it would matter much or translate to a 2x increase in the service life of guns lubed with the better lube.