In reviewing the final numbers and charts from Etienne and Pierre, above are the results we see.  The only revision is a moderate increase in speed for the PG Raster query.

Final results in speed for lastools– ~350,000 points per second.  In other words– off-the-charts fast.  And the initial RMSE of ~25 feet was a mistake– it is probably closer to 0.2 feet.

Stay tuned for detailed reviews of these techniques (with code).